Mating 53 Merc speedo with 350 tranny?

Sorry for the FNG questions but...My speedometer is disconnected. Hell, I didn't even realize I had the cable till earlier, I was poking around behind the gauge cluster and found that it was wound up in there. Anyhow, having never done this before-I'm guessing these two items (Merc speedo, late model 350 ******) won't work together. Am I wrong? Is there an adapter of some sort? Or will I need to install a newer speedo?

As always, Thanks for the input

Bryan

 

For what itis worth: In my hudson I used a 72 blazer speedo cable and it fit right up to my hudson speedo and the 700R4. The only thing is that it reads half the speed I am actually going. You might have the same luck.

 

Have you trie to mount the wire to the speedo?
The mounting is pretty standardized. Ive only seen two types.

On my 42 i could not use the 42-48 wire since Ford had changed type. so i got the end tha mounts at the speedo of a 51 and mounted it on the 42 wire. And it works great.

Then we have the issue of calibration,there is a lot of differen gears to fit into the 350 atomatic to fix that.
And there is also small "gearboxes" tha can fix it to.

I did a search on Google with Speedometer adapters and got 5000 hits, try that and see if yoy can get some help there..

Then we have the issue with calibaration, at

 

I have never owned a running Mercury........had a few 49 - 51's that were DEAD. So, I can only guess.......but I believe the cable will hook up. It did on my other 40 Ford (350/350 combo) and on a bunch of early Ford pickups (49 to 56's).

Go here for the information on getting it to read correct.

http://www.tciauto.com/tech_info/speedo_gears.htm


Fairly easy.........

 

As always, thanks for the advice.

Bryan