Cheesy Tech: Speedo cable housing repair

Unfortunately I have no pictures cause I did this quite awhile back, but when I got my wagon one of the many things broken was both the speedo cable (end twisted off) and cable housing itself was screwed, broken in half. I got the generic replacement cable, a Help! item, but had to invent a way to fix the housing. After looking it over I noticed that a piece of leftover steel tubing, I think 5/16, about 3 inches long, fit over the outside of the housing. I chamfered the inside of the broken cable housing ends, slipped the two broken ends into the tube and put a pretty decent looking hex crimp on it with a pair of heavy duty tv cable connector crimpers, like Radio Shack part 278-238. The pair I had around looked a little heavier duty, crimped about a half inch at a time. It spliced the halves neatly and the cable lasted long enough that the speedo itself crapped out next, about 2 more years.

You could also use this to make up a cable to fit say a Ford speedo on one end to a Chevy trans end etc. Kind of feeble, but I want to contribute something, I've been learning a lot on here, you guys are pretty incredible.

Randy

 

Nothing cheesy about something that works! I used a similar method to mate a '52 chevy and a s-10 speedo cable...

Brian

 

Definitely NOT cheesy!! I NEEDED that tech! Trying for a while to figure out how to mate a SBC tach drive distributor to an English (Smiths) tach. Ditto for speedo. You've got me thinking now. Thanks!! -Keith

 

I'm glad somebody could use the idea, let me know how it turns out. I just meant that I'm under no illusion about how useful this is compared to some of the artists whose tech post's I have been reading since I got here. I stand in awe of the craftsmanship and useful info I see around here.

Randy

 

This works great. I've done it in the past. I'd recommend adding a piece of shrink tubing over the joint to seal out any water that might get it. The one I did was about 9 years ago and still working good.