Fords - up to and including 56, the driven gears (the ones on the cable) were of a different design. In 57 they changed the design which has been used all the way up to and including at least some 5 speeds. I believe that the 57 O/D's used the pre 57 design - don't know how far up this went. The teeth on the gears go from about 13 to 21 (some numbers are skipped) Most are available on ebay. The gears are also oriented two way - left leaning and right leaning. Look at them vertically and you can see how the lean. Most cars have the right leaning ones, but certain trans's have left one - 4 speed top loaders in particular, as the gear goes in the right side. Generally, one tooth is good for a 5 MPH adjustment. I had to play around with three cars this winter to adjust their speedos and learned a lot. Did them all using trial and error with the gears. I am not familiar with GM and Mopar gears.
Will this cable also work with the 3.03 three speed in my 55 Vickey, other than correct tooth count I don't think Ford would make to many different designs. Gary
This would just be for the modern transmissions, I know the transmission cable end on my original 3 speed is way different than the one for the new T5. The original cable on my '54 3-speed looks like this...
Bringing this thread back up because I finally got around to hooking my cable up and driving the car. The needle on the speedometer bounces around erratically and makes a horrible grinding noise. I tried a different (rebuilt) gauge and the same thing occurred. We also changed the gear to one with more teeth and the same thing happened. Any ideas what the issue might be?
Bringing this up once more. The cable has been lubed with white lithium grease and I've also sprayed the grease into the back of the gauge where the cable goes in. The needle is steady while the MPH is below 30 but above that, the needle acts erratically and makes a horrible noise. I'm starting to wonder if I need to try another cable. Any ideas?
I can't find the thread, but there's one on here where someone addressed the bouncing needle in the speedo. Their remedy was to take it apart and clean it out.They reported that did the trick. I'm going to have to do the same thing because mine bounces too. I'll keep looking and post it if I find it.
According to this - http://www.speedometershop.com/faq.html a bouncy needle could be a kink in the line or a dry line. I've always been told to use graphite lube on the cable. It worked on my '85 Dodge truck.
Dos Cincos,I wonder if you tried hanging the cable housing over a bucket and spray some brake cleaner down it liberally and afterwards spray some white lithium grease in it. Also the speedometer head might need to be cleaned.
The last time I was out at the car we unhooked the cable from the transmission and speedo and pulled the inner cable out. Then squirted white lithium grease down the outer tube until it came out the transmission end. We then also lubed the inner cable with white lithium as we pushed it back into the outer tube. My guess is the issue is in the speedo head. I'll be back out at the car tomorrow so my plan is to hook the cable back up to the speedo and then hook up an electric drill to the transmission side to remove the transmission from the equation. Then I'll hook the drill up to the speedo itself to remove the cable from the equation. I really don't want to have to pull the instrument cluster and speedo back out once again to lube the speedo head but I gotta get this thing working. Thanks for the advice guys
The speedo on my 55 Vickey jumped and bounced when I first put it on the road. I completely took it apart, cleaned everything, a little WD40 on everything moveable and it worked like new.
Did the same with WD-40 with several old cars the graphite gets caked over time and the WD-40 loosens it back up.
I purchased the ATP Y-801 and ran into a problem on the transmission side. My AOD has a speed sensor plug in the same spot as the cable attaches. Can I connect both? Do I need the speed sensor? I am running the fuel injected 302.
You might want to check in here since you kept the F.I. www.sbftech.com they would probably know for sure.
If I understand all this correctly.....If you are running a computer for the EFI, the computer needs the digital input from the pulse generator (speed sensor). If you are running a mechanical speedometer, then you also need the cable. There was a period of time where many Ford vehicles were equiped in such a manner...mechanical speedo, and computer. Those vehicles had the dual purpose outputs from the ******. Case in point...my 4r70w ****** had the digital pulse generator, but I'm also using a digital speedometer, so I didn't have to change anything. The guys that are doing the same engine/****** swap, but keeping the oem speedometer, had to change the output gizmo to the dual function. If that is what you need, I can get references for vehicles that have what you need. I found this info from the 57fordsforever forum: "looked in the standard engine management catalog at speed sensors. looks like any rear wheel drive car or truck from about 85 to mid 90's with mechanical speedometers should be what we need" The member that posted that got one from an 85 Lincoln a pic..(not the '85 Lincoln mentioned)
What Texas57 said is true. My donor drivetrain is from 1989. It has a dual output at the rear of the transmission. A digital signal to the EEC and a cable to the speedo. The problem is finding a cable that will hook up to the 1989 transmission, while keeping the electronic sender, and hook up to the 1955 speedo. The picture he provided is 1991/1992 era when the speed sensor was moved to the rear differential. If anyone else has done a transplant like me, and kept the EFI please tell me how you hooked up the speedometer. Thanks.
Not sure if this will help you or not, but an older 4.6 thread we had running on the 57fordsforever forum had several pages of back and forth discussions on the speed sensor/cable. The discusion starts about the bottom of page 3 and is brought up several times over the next 3 or 4 pages. http://57fordsforever.com/smf/index.php?topic=990.30
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