Snapped Speedo Needle

[Crass]

So I'm threaping along minding my own business and look down to be met with this -

...... which obviously fills me with joy.  How does a speedo needle snap?  Well, I guess fatigue from age, plastic don't last forever.

So it needs mending.  You can see the rest of the needle just at the bottom of the gauge but I suspect trying to glue it will not be successful.  My questions are, does the speedo surround which retains the glass front just pull off (with a bit pf gentle persuasion)?; and does the needle simply push onto the spindle, allowing it to be replaced by another?

I can get another speedo to cannibalise but before wrecking a good instrument I'll just ask if anyone has a needle kicking about, or a scrap speedo / tacho (needles look the same) for parts, available.  Clock is for a GSXR750L but I suspect a few others may have the same needle.

[dupersunc]

You can gently prise the bezel off with a small screw driver. 

I successfully glued a bit of welding rod to my rev counter as a repair. worked fine until I cart wheeled the bike...

[Captain Chaos]

Needle snapped because of vibrations, mine did the same (on two different speedo's). The rubbers where the speedo is mounted in get tyred and saggy, which causes the speedo to rest on the metal bracket, and the vibrations do the rest. Only cure is new rubbers.

You could try to remove the glass and glue the needle back on, I tried once but had a "fuck this shit" moment when I found another speedo in a cupboard and installed that instead.

 

[Crass]

Righto thanks, I can get in it to effect repairs then.  I'll do what you suggest CC and replace the rubbers as well, otherwise I'm wasting my time.  I might try gluing it.  If that fails does anyone know if the needle pulls off? I mean, I guess it will but is it supposed to?  I don't want to pull it off and find I've wrecked it.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Crass

[Crass]

Can you actually buy the rubbers?  Looking at the online fiche it appears that the surround comes complete with the metal bracket, at a rather large price 34950-17C80.  Or am I thinking about the wrong part?

[Dezza]

I thought the red plastic coffee strirrer thingies from fast food outlets like McWhoppers are supposed to work well as replacement needles. Or is this an urban myth?

[Captain Chaos]

parts 10 and 11 (10 is no longer available from Suzuki) are also important.

I have used some other rubber stuff (vacuum pipe cut open or something similar) and glued it on the inside of the bracket where the speedo touched it. What matters is that there's no metal to metal contact between the speedo (and tacho) and the bracket.

[Swiss Toni]

UN-crimp the bezel a little at a time, so's not to deform it. Go around at least half a dozen times, if need be. If you have a replacement needle, ease the old needle off its pin by using two teaspoons opposite each other as levers. Replace new needle carefully. And, as they say, 'Robert's your Mothers Brother! Simples!

[Crass]

Thanks for all this chaps, I'll take the clocks off and do all of the above and hopefully get a good permanent repair

[Crass]

As you can see in the picture below there is a sort of shard of plastic left on the broken needle.  This isn't off the front of the needle, must be off the back.  So there's actually quite a lot of adhesive surface there to attempt gluing it together again.  So, at the risk of having one of CC's 'fuck-this-shit' moments I'll give that a go using Loctite All Plastics superglue, which is supposed to be the dog's.  Interestingly, the needle doesn't seem to be bonded to the mounting disc where it has snapped, so another bit of glue underneath there for strength might help.  Anyway, I'll give it a go in the interests of economy.

 

Edited October 24, 2018 by Crass

[Damienga15de]

i was going to glue mine but it was basically dust , bought a second hand clock, lasted 2 spins broke off again

[Crass]

Yes, I'm guessing that's because the basic problem which CC mentioned remained, i.e. vibrations getting to the clock from the bracket.  My feeling is that even if the clock isn't actually touching metal then the foam deteriorates over the years and becomes hardened and the damping effect reduces.  I'm going to stick some new foam around the clock casing to rejuvenate the damping effect as part of the job.

[johnr]

ok, ive some experience of this, albeit on katana clocks which as you imagine are considerably trickier to source. first of all, forget glueing the needle. it broke because the plastic became degraded and embrittled by ultraviolt light (sunshine) glue it and it will just break somewhere else. next, dont try pulling the centre off. the pin its fixed to is bafflingly fragile, if you pry it, 8 times out of 10 it will snap and then youre fucked. so, what to do. you can carefully remove as much as you can of the needle and then replace it with something. coffee stirrers will do, and make sure you put aside a day in 3 months to do it again. thats not the sort of plastic designed to last a long time as you can guess. ive seen cocktail sticks used, my fave was (remember this was on a katana) a playmobil pirates sword!
anyhow, you can buy very similar needles on Eblag, they come up occasionally for sale. keep an eye open for early mitsubishi shogun or pajero speedo needles. they use the same pattern needles albeit a bit too long so you need to trim them down, theres a breaker called mitzibits that sells on there but he doesnt have as many now as he used to have. clearly in a car they arent exposed to sunlight the same way so dont get too badly damaged by it. alternatively other jap bikes use similar profile needles (dare i say 1100 g o l d w i n g) if you decide to swap the whole needle with the bezel, get a piece of cardboard and cut a slot in it with a knife, then slide it under the needle with the spindle through the slot you cut to protect the clock face, then grind away the bezel with a dremmel. in its centre is a brass knurled ring that slides over the spindle, carefully grind one side of this brass to release its grip on the spindle so you can remove it from the clocks, to secure th new one, use a tiny bit of araldite to bond it to the spindle. you need a steady hand and nerves of steel to tackle this though, its nervous stuff.

Edited October 26, 2018 by johnr

[Crass]

Thanks John, that's really helpful.  Not what I wanted to hear but I'm glad I've heard it, as I can now avoid making a right bollocks of it.  Much to ponder.

[johnr]

yeah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the flipside is that there are still plenty of gsxr clocks out there.

[Crass]

What you say about UV light is what I originally surmised was the cause.  Leads me to think that replacing the clock with another could be Russian roulette - I could end up with another brittle needle which lets go after not long.  Similarly, replacing the bezel and needle with a second-hand donor.  I reckon the only permanent repair is replacement of the needle with a newly manufactured one.

It would be a whole lot easier if I left the bezel in place as removal seems to be dodgy either way.  I was thinking of carefully removing the existing needle from the bezel, or grinding it down carefully until the remains are flat, then sticking a new needle on top.  Mitzybits sems to be out of stock of the needles ATM so I suspect these might do the job if removed from their bezels - which seems straightforward - and stuck on, possibly with some trimming https://www.Eblag.co.uk/itm/NEW-MOTORCYCLE-SPEEDO-MPH-REV-COUNTER-NEEDLES-X-2-CLOCKS-GAUGE/252585088190?_trkparms=aid%3D555017%26algo%3DPL.CASSINI%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20170907081254%26meid%3D205c52335f934a57aa9493f9f03c7fce%26pid%3D100281%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D2%26%26itm%3D252585088190&_trksid=p2045573.c100281.m3567

Edited October 28, 2018 by Crass

[Askamaskinservice]

3D printing a new one?

Edited October 29, 2018 by Askamaskinservice
Added picture.

[Crass]

So after removing the speedo I can confirm the Captain is right.  The foam surround on the mounting plate has deteriorated and there is very little foam left between the clocks and the rim of the mounting plate, so the speedo has been rattling on the plate.  So bad in fact it has worn quite a deep groove in the casing.  No wonder the needle gave up.  I'll insert some new heavy density foam before remounting both clocks.

The needle itself is made half-round for part of its length to allow it to sit on the centre pivot disc.  It has snapped on the half-round - thinnest - section.  So that's not a shard of plastic on it.  I don't think this is particularly a UV-damage issue, just a fatigue break caused by severe vibration.  I'm actually going to see how it goes glued together again, with a blob of epoxy on the underside of the needle bridging to the disc for added strength.  With the damping medium replaced I think it might work - worth a punt and if not I'll replace the needle then.

So it's worth saying that it might be worth checking your foam surrounds.  Much easier to replace a bit of foam now before your needles break than piss about dismantling clocks.

[Crass]

On 10/22/2018 at 4:49 PM, Captain Chaos said:

parts 10 and 11 (10 is no longer available from Suzuki) are also important.

Yes, my part 10 is slightly damaged on the upper surface.  I was initially chuffed to find CMSL had a NOS one for 3 Euros, then they take the piss with wanting 14 Euros to post something the size of a pea!  Anyway, then realised it is identical on the upper and lower surfaces, and the lower surface never touches anything, so you can turn it over

Edited November 4, 2018 by Crass

[Wolf]

On 10/22/2018 at 5:49 PM, Captain Chaos said:

parts 10 and 11 (10 is no longer available from Suzuki) are also important.

I have used some other rubber stuff (vacuum pipe cut open or something similar) and glued it on the inside of the bracket where the speedo touched it. What matters is that there's no metal to metal contact between the speedo (and tacho) and the bracket.

Have you tried babbits il see if i can load a link 

[Wolf]

https://www.babbittsonline.com/oemparts/a/suz/50d3c5bef870021958f277c4/speedometer-model-w-x

Have a look here iv found stuff thatSuzuki dont list any more 

 

Edited November 4, 2018 by Wolf
Left out detail

[Crass]

3 hours ago, Wolf said:

https://www.babbittsonline.com/oemparts/a/suz/50d3c5bef870021958f277c4/speedometer-model-w-x

Have a look here iv found stuff thatSuzuki dont list any more 

 

Yeah, not available from them either.  Trouble is with ordering from the US you are generally going to get stung for postage, and above a small value import duty and all that palaver.

[Crass]

In case it helps anyone else in future I'll show some details of what I'm doing to add to the archive of info on here.  So, as CC said previously the underlying problem is that the foam clock mount deteriorates with time, allowing the clocks to contact the metal mounting plate and vibration to cause fatigue failure of the needles.  You can see the extent of the damage on my clock, a deep groove in the case -

If you don't sort out the underlying problem you're wasting time and money repairing / replacing the clocks.  The clock surround consists of two elements, there's a rubber covering with foam beneath.  The foam also extends through the metal backing plate to provide further cushioning between the clocks and the plate - it is this which I reckon fails the worst, certainly was on mine, allowing the clocks to rattle inside the holes in the plate.  So you need to remove all the old foam carefully from the rubber cover, to which it is glued.  I snipped carefully with small scissors, then scraped the remainder off with a bluntish Stanley knife.

Having done this you can then insert a new piece of dense foam cut to shape and glue in place - I used impact adhesive - like so -

But you also have to put some foam around the rims of the circles in the metal plate -

You can see the slot I cut in the metal plate to allow the odometer shaft of the speedo to pass through.  I couldn't see a way to remove this, I think it is glued on after the speedo is in place as another obstacle to speedo removal / tampering.  Obviously you need to cut a slit in your new foam here to allow the shaft to go back through.  The surround can now be glued onto the metal plate - I'm going to glue the tacho side on and leave the speedo side detached until I've wiggled the speedo back in once I've repaired the needle.

[Wolf]

Il have a look on fb a mate of mine was advertising Cat needles il check if he still has 

[Wolf]

Ok cool mate of mine with Kat neadles is joining the forum ( big on his Kats ) 

Soon as he is here il link him to your thread