Is there any way to re-set a VDO speedometer back to zero miles? I bought a set of used VDO gages and want to set the speedometer back to zero if possible.
Short of taking it apart and rolling the tumblers? Well... when I was a kid I went into a shop with my old man and there was this wierd noise coming from under an Oldsmobile. Being pretty short at the time it was no trouble to take a peek under. Guy had a cradle made of wood V notched to hold an electric drill, with the spedo cable chucked in, and a hose clamp holdin' the trigger down.
I used to spin speedos back in the 60's for a couple of car dealers. You MAY be able to 'pick' the tumblers... use a fine ice pick or very small screwdriver and , from the face of the speedo, GENTLY pry apart each tumbler and see if you can roll it back to zero. It may take several attempts to get them all back in line... don't know if the fed's made the aftermarket gauges pick proof... give it a try.
Jack up the rear of the car, put it in REVERSE and put a brick on the gas pedal for a while like Farris Bueler's Day Off. Just don't do it with a bumper jack, or in a garage with a glass wall that over looks a cliff, and everything should be juuuuuust fine. -Brad
Being an ex Car dealer, I'll tell you how........I saw it being done,by somebody else Pull the speedo head out of the car. If it has a rear cover on the speedo head remove this. Inside the odometer tumblers are little "planetary gears", try and see through the gap between the tumblers to locate these. Get a small electrical screwdriver between the tumblers and gently prize them apart enough to click it over ,the inner planetary gears. Repeat until it has been correctly recalibrated [ make sure the numbers all line up straight,and are loose enough to work properly ] This looked real easy ,watching somebody else do it [haha!]
I reset the odometer on my 4x4 a while back. The speedo isn't hooked up and never will be due to the drivetrain swap, and i dont plan on selling it so I'm not worried about the legalities of it. I just carefully disassembled the gauge and odometer until the wheels would turn freely, then bolted it all back together. If it was assembled, it can be disassembled. Mine now permanently reads 000000. Kinda made the smog guy take a second look a couple days ago.
I would imagine that the VDO speedo isn't going to be very easy to disassemble, so I would try the drill approach. Install a speedo cable onto the back of the speedometer and a drill onto the other end. Run the drill backwards and you should see the miles disappearing from the odometer. If this doesn't work, then you will have to go the other direction; which will probably take a lot longer and maybe not worth the effort.
That actually doesn't work as when you are reversing your speedo doesn't read negative, it still spins in the same direction. Some speedos you can roll back by turning the cable backwards but on the newer ones you need to pull them apart rotate the numbers by hand as a rule. Something that I did discover about rollbacks when I lived in Lebanon MO [the roll back capitol of the world in the '80s] was that the speedos that could be done with a drill had a tendency to loose their accuracy. There is a speedo guy here in town that will calibrate your speedo and if you ask nice he will sometimes change the odometer on a car that is exempt from milage on title. But it isn't a service that he advertises as it falls into a gray area and could cause him quite a liability if you catch my drift.
This VDO has a rolled lip around the lens and appears to have no opening from the rear. Just thought someone might have a way to get into the case somehow.
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