Has anyone tried rebuilding their speedometer? I called a vette shop and they said they have a guy that rebuilds them for around $80.. Since my odometer is working fine I'm leaning towards the speedometer needing attention. Just wondering if anyone tackled this job themselves..?

 

There is a guy in TN that is famous for working on Speedometers and other Gages for automobiles. No webpage or e-mail, he gets enough business from word of mouth.

His name/company:

John
Redline Gage & Clock Repair
469 Windy City RD
Humboldt, TN 38343

800-375-2310

He will replace your 85mph speedo with a 140mph if you want to go up. He charges 60.00 to do so, and you have to send in your old speedo for a core. If you choose not to send in your old as a core, he will charge you around 300.00 for the core. So it would be to your advantage to send in your core, as you don't need it anyways.

He rebuilds the cores, and uses brass bushings instead of nylon. GM started using nylon, but they don't last.

He sends you the speedo, and can tell you how to install. He also can re-calibrate if it does not match your cars gears.

I just send mine back for re-calibration. If you start changing your speedo gear in the trans, most likely you will also have to change the driven gear to match the speedo gear. It is much simplier to take the speedo out and have it calibrated to your car.

John will have you take 4 readings. You will need to have or find a friend that has a GPS that reads MPH.

The readings are

Car GPS
30=
60=
90=
120=

He recalibrates for free, you just have the cost of shipping it to him. He pays for shipping back. You have to ship him your core, but not until you get the replacement speedo, and you have 30 days to do so. So what I did, was ship my core back with the replacement and GPS speed readings for re-calibration all in one package.

The only thing I seen that was off, was the crossflags on the speedo. They are the markings of a 79 or below, and if replacing the speedo in an 80-82, the flags are different, but not that noticeble.

 

Thanks for the post. I'm not really looking to swap out the 85mph guage.. Just get it to read correctly. If the local guy gets $80 and John get $60 plus shipping plus reshipping for calibration I think the local route would be better.. I was just wondering how hard it would be to do myself but the more I think of it.. $80 and I don't have to worry about it.. I think I may just go that route.. :cheers:

 

The only reason I needed to re-calibrate, was I was going to an 140mph. He sets them all to factory specs when re-built. He totally re-builds the units, and he will either exchange them or re-build the one you have, just in case you want to keep the original unit.

That inclucded shipping to you. Yes, a person can re-build them, but finding the parts is the problem. If a person finds the parts, then he has to know how to re-calibrate after the re-build.