SAAB RIBBON SPEEDOMETER REBUILD

This is a "ribbon" speedometer from a model 93 or early 96 Saab. The photo below shows how the poor thing looked when I took it apart---YUK! After I took it completely apart, blew the spiders out, cleaned out the rust and general crud, it began to look a whole lot better.

 The unit has five main parts--the cast aluminum face [top], the clear plastic "glass" [behind the face], the sheet metal number panel, the cast aluminum back case, and the speedometer gubbins themselves [shown here inside the back case].

 I went through several cups of coffee getting the speed drum out and cleaned up. I had to "unfreeze" the input housing with the magnet and the primary odometer drive [extreme right, at top]. The geartrain leading to the odometer wheels was a mess, as usual, and looked like they had been underwater for a few years [they are all cleaned up here, ready to go back in the case and be properly lubed and adjusted].

I painted the case--inside and out--and polished out the badly scratched plastic "glass".  You can see that the odometer is reset to all zeros plus point four miles--the last number wheel is for tenths of a mile. I even replaced the colored  plastic for the indicator lights--seems like those litle buggers are always shot. The small one right under "SAAB" is red, the larger one below that is green. So this remnant of Saab antiquity looks and works like new once again--it's ready for another 50 years of faithful speed-O-ing.  Old Trolls are like that.