This seems like a "back to the future". speedo only we don't need to reach 88mph. We fitted a new SW speedo from summit to our shoe box ford , but on reaching approx 67 mph it flicks right around past 100mph to the stop. It will return to normal when nearly stationary and again read very correct. It's a cable speedo to a 700r4 trans. We have driven a total of 150mls nearly all under 60mph tuning etc till we got zapped "back to the future" Have contacted summit and they got back to us promptly , said contact SW before we send a new one on an overseas voyage, which we did 10 days ago and still we wait. I presume it's a speedo problem . But a ****** to fix as we need to drop the steering column and wiring , part of the brake pedal box and drop the whole dash ***embly. Any tips greatly appreciated. We just want be over being a Marty Mcfly time traveler.
The new Stewart Warner speedometers are garbage. Made in Mexico, speedometer frames made of plastic. The trouble is in the speedometer head. If you used a cheap parts store speedometer cable the inner cable may be to long and putting pressure on the magnet, pushing it forward and causing damage. Disconnect the cable at the transmission and pull on the cable, at the most it should stick out one inch. Any longer and it can bottom out in the speedometer driven gear and put pressure on the speedo. Also at the speedo end it should stick out 3/8's of an inch.
Got SW wings gauge kit speedo, cable driven from Summit and the mileage stopped at 56 miles, called Summit and they sent a new one out and the speedo needle jumped like crazy at all speeds and mileage numbers split, could see bottom of top numbers and tops of bottom numbers. called Summit and they sent the third one out, and so far with 300 miles it working. The good news is Summit ready is a good company to work with, the bad news this has been a pain in the *** replacing the speedo 3 times in a mouth, I joked around about installing the last one with velcro. I would have gone with a different brand but it 's a matching kit!
And I thought we were possibly buying quality. Will check cable length. Just trying to track down speedometer cable origin, a fairly certain it was From Summit but unfortunately they are one of the few who do not specify what you purchased on your pay pal account.
Still awaiting a response from Stewart Warner on this , is 10 days too soon to expect a response? The only contact I have for them is info@stewartwarner.com Is there another contact? A HAMB member has contacted me to offer ***istance which I will take up if Stewart warner fails to come through. www.speedoservice.com e1956v above had some ideas so thanks for the helpful advise.
An info address doesn't sound like a tech address. But at least you'd think they could send you the tech address within 10 days.
I checked and that info address is all I could find so you are at the mercy of it being forwarded to the tech group..Hang in there..
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious **** ..." The Doc
I used Stewart-Warner gauges & senders since I built my first car, in 1955. I was still all S-W'd up 'til 1984, when their vendors started to wane in reordering stock. Couple of speedo problems later, I simply waited 'til I could find 'N.O.S.' S-W, otherwise no deal. Fast forward to 1996, I was given a catalog for Sunpro, (I guess a Chinese retro group for the rehash of the old Sun Electrics) They had a line of black faced gauges that looked the part, were inexpensive, and the right 2.063" diameter. (my old 160 MPH S-W speedo was still perkin', so replaced the rest with Sunpro, UNDER $60) Went right in my engine-turned dash cluster that wife Joey did for me, this was in my '55 F100. Back lighting was criminally dim, but the gauges never missed a beat. Last Father's Day, wife Joey was serving me breakfast in bed...after which, she says "Take a look, they're coming any day now..." I looked at the coolest set of 5 black faced cl***ic gauges you ever saw. Auto Meter, curved faces...arrows that are etched, with hollow heads, a work of art! They arrived 4 days later, so I ordered a Rebel wiring kit. Just a little longer to finish her newer BMW (her work car) and we'll wire and 'gauge' the cool F100! Auto Meter is an AMERICAN company, NO 10 day travel time, bogus info addy, etc. No 'long distance' fees either. (tried dialing 'long distance operator', but she wasn't around. Left a long time ago) Auto Meter EVEN HAS a 'custom shop' that runs during working hours. A Full Service operation! Thanks, Auto Meter. Thank you, Joey.
Still hanging in there. After another week of silence it does seem like we are too far away to be of a concern to SW.
My SW 160 MPH speedo has always worked perfectly, BUT, it was an old unit that was installed in a POS wanna be hot rod and never hooked up, built in the 80s best I could tell. Just went thru 2 SW water temp gauges that would not exceed 140 degrees, when tested in boiling water beforehand, and 2 Speedway water temp gauges before that, both mechanical. Summit and Speedway are both great with respect to customer service, but the time for replacement is gone forever. After 4 failures I installed an Autometer which works perfectly for about 10 $s more than the SW. I DID get the SW Wings water temp gauge to indicate correctly in my 31 Coupe after incorporating 2 resistors and a diode, and its still hangin in there after 2.5 years and almost 7k miles. The HAMB thread regarding the resistors and diode incorporation should still exist. SW is definitely NOT the company it was when I was a kid. I ***ume thats why old SW gauges have retained their value...Good Luck Kiwi 4d, but I wouldnt hold my breath....
Mike, Thanks for keeping us in mind! We always love to see Americans supporting Americans. Let us know if you need any help on the wiring. Thanks again.
Looks like Stewart warner can't be bothered with customer service at all , feel after 3 or whatever emails and zip response they feel we are too far away to care. Followed http://www.speedoservice.com/ thanks for the prompt help and advice and unfortunately the cable length as you suggested looks right on the money.no easy fix there. Summit did get back to me after a few emails and from what I made of the email they will send a new speedometer but it appears they will bill me!!! They are presently out of stock. I don't think billing me is going to happen on my end . Can they use card details from a previous purchase?? Car is all finished now just awaiting the lodged kiwi paper work to come through to get it legal from the beauraucrats in the low volume vehicle circus we have to deal with down under. Can't avoid it just have to bow down and comply to get legal. So **** it up.
Car all legal now. But the Stupid Warner speedo got worse when my wife drove it home 10 miles. The speedo started clicking and jumping 3 to 4 mph . Took the cable off the trans and it sticks out the correct 7/8" . I can feel it binding when turning by hand from the trans end and the head attached, disconnect the head end and it's free to turn with nothing attached. Put a cordless drill on the trans end and it skips and flips right around past 100 mph to zero. Stupid Warner your days are numbered if you have zero customer contact or dis service. Bring back USA made.
my SW speedo odometer stopped when trying to move to 1000 miles. called speedway, they sent another, took it out of the box and it it spins hard by hand, so i will send that one back also. disappointing............just junk.
Car has done 440 km ad the needle has begun to bounce a little, though still reasonably accurate till we hit warp speed. Though the odometer now has had a fit and stopped while it's trying to bring the 4 and 0 around together to I presume the 5 and 1 together . My school maths such as it is told me the 41 came after 40 not 51. Still not a peep from Stewart Warner. So looks like I will need to write them off my Xmas card list. Sorry just venting my frustration on a non communicating company.
Ok an update, Summit sent me a replacement speedometer ( thanks summit). Finished a couple of other cars and today thought I would replace the faulty speedometer. Ok I will test the replacement first before I dismember the entire dash etc. which is a task. Did 30 miles and speedometer works perfect up to as fast as you want to go, yay, there is always a but .. The odometer did not turn one click at all. Made in Mexico sticker by Stupid Warner with zero quality control I presume. Ok if any one has a nice original 49 ford speedometer I would like to hear from you .seems like this is the best way to go, Henry ford parts.
Interesting thread reading. I saw what Speedometer Service said about too long. My ford car has a stock 47 Plymouth speedo. It went nuts on first short test. It was flopping up and down then sticks at 70 or 100, at low speeds. Loosening the Oldsmobile cable under dash did help a bit, so I will take a look and trim, but I suspect other issues with the magnet drum thing. I thought maybe grinding dust got in there, but I did air clean it all when I oiled the inner parts How hard will it be for you to get a orig speedo in NZ?...I know shipping from USA is spendy, and who knows if it will be ok?
you can go to a swap meet and pick out one of the many vintage SW speedos for sale there and they will all work fine, even if they are 60 - 70 years old. it seems as though EVERYTHING ****s these days. anything over say 30 years old that you replace with a new one will last only 3 years.
Just had a peek at the speedo cable bezel in the car which comes from a 700r4 and it is slightly smaller in ID than the broken 49 ford one I have . Don't really want to have to wrestle out the cable also to get it modified to go from chev trans to 1949 speedo head.
I have been using Stewart Warner since I started playing with hot rods in 1962. They used to be excellent. Now are trash. I had a set of deluxe gauges hidden on a shelf in the garage from back when I sold speed parts. Installed them in my avatar roadster. Could not manage to fit a speedo cable into the trans so went without for a couple of years. Cl***ic came out with their skydrive for electric speedometers so I put one of those in anvd also put in a brand new S/W deluxe electric speedometer to match my other gauges. Things went well until about 4k miles when the speedo needle decided to jump up to 120 and down to 20 after ten or so miles of driving. Odometer was just happy and worked perfectly. I talked to Parr, where I bought the gauge and was told good luck getting help from S/W. They had terrible luck and they were a W/D for them. I checked with Cl***ic and they said it was the speedometer itself since the odometer was still working. I wrote S/W customer service 3 times now and even talked to the S/W rep at their booth at SEMA. He would not do anything except offer the opinion that I installed it wrong! Like I was some newbie who never had done anything with that magic stuff called electricty. I still have never gotten a response to my letters and the rep refused to give me a good number for customer service. Great company. I talked to Cl***ic and they will make a speedometer that will mimic S/W in markings but with my initials in a small white box like the S/W logo. AND guarantee it for 7 years in writing. So, I will leave the "hole filler" from S/W in place until my Cl***ic speedometer arrives. Hopefully before this year's SEMA show so I can make a very loud and public present of it to the rep!
My electronic SW speedo registers around 60 mph when I am driving anywhere from 40-70 mph. When slowing down, it shows 60 mph until the car gets down to about 35 mph. JUNK. Why do retailers sell this ****.....they are almost as bad as STEWART WARNER. Did I say.....I think STEWART WARNER ****S!
oh jeeze, this is just great. I bought a whole set of the stuff for my coupe build. Guess I'll have to start matching up replacements before I even put them in.
on the set i bought, the lights at night don't match each other. one is bright, one has an "odd" color.
I have the newer Stewart Warner Wing gauges in my car. So far (knock on wood) they have worked well. However, I am not using the speedometer. Perhaps if you're having difficulties with the newer SW speedo you could find an old SW speedometer at a swap meet, ebay, HAMB Cl***ifieds, etc. and see how that works. Here's what I did. I found a cool 1935 speedometer on Ebay that I just had to have. Its rather m***ive at more than 6" in cir***ference. When I hooked it up it initially worked for about 2 miles, then the needle pegged and the speedo made a horrific noise. I shipped it to HAMBer e1956v (Rusty) from Speedometer Services in Colorado Springs, CO. He took it apart, rebuilt it, buffed the gl***, calibrated it, and set the odometer. Before he would accept any payment he insisted that I hook it up and made certain I was happy with the end result. Of course I was! I paid him immediately and couldn't believe his OUTSTANDING customer service! And all of this for not much $$!! He also made me a custom speedo cable as well. If I were you, I would find a vintage S.W. Speedo you like (from when they had high quality products) and send it to HAMBer e1956v and have him go through it. He'll even set the odometer to the millage of your choosing so its accurate to your engine/car. BAM, now you have an authentic vintage gauge that will be calibrated, rebuilt, accurate, and will work perfectly. Here's what he did for me. Worth every cent. I'm just a fellow HAMBer that was taken care of by another fellow HAMBer.
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