Which way does the gear go in. Gear first or shaft first. It came out gear first. After looking at it I really don't see much wrong with it unless the inside where the cable goes is worn. Both cables are new. Hooked the drill to the cable and speedometer works. Getting a new gear from the dealer in a couple of hours. They had to get it from the warehouse.

 

if I remember, only one end of the gear is indented to accomidate the speedo cable. So it should be easy to determine which end needs to be visable after installation.

But there's another common problem - that is caused by bad match up of tranny swaps... where the tranny is not the one that originally came with the car. And that's a condition where the cam that the gear is supposed to be turned by... no longer is lined up properely. So the speedo gear is not being turned itself. This was VERY common on Novas - where the tranny was removed and replaced with another models beefier tranny. Something would not line up properely and the only casualty was the speedo gear wasn't getting turned anymore.

A way to test this is to install the speedo nylon gear back in to tranny, and using a short piece of speedo cable, try to turn the speedo gear. If the gear is properly mated to the shaft - you won't be able to spin it.

When I was into Novas, I would carry a piece of speedo cable with me when I was looking at ones to purchase. If the seller told me that "oh, BTW the speedo doesn't work", I would slide under the car, unscrew and oull-out the existing speedo cable from the tranny - then use my test piece of speedo cable and see if I could turn the gear freely or not. It saved me more that a couple of times.

 

Thanks Mike. I know I don't have the original engine and was told the transmission was rebuilt. I still have the old cable so I'll check it out.

 

goes on the cable so the long part is on the cable and the gear goes in first.

 

Well, got the new gear installed and the speedo still doesn't work. Talked to a tranny guy and he said may be the gear in the tail shaft. I may not need to know how fast I am going that bad.