SAAB MONTE CARLO INSTRUMENT RECONDITIONING, PLUS

 This is the flip side of a Saab Monte Carlo instrument module, in all its beat up glory. Rust, corrosion, hard handling, and 50 years time have taken their toll.   AK!

 Here is the front of the plastic instrument mounting panel. It was pretty boogered up. You can't see all the cracks and gouges in the panel, in this photo, but they were there.

 The panel had six mounting bolts cast into it--this is the back side--and five of them were ripped out. The panel was also warped and was cracked in about a dozen places. 

 J B Kwikweld to the rescue! A local hardware store was the source for the 4mm x .7mm bolts, as well as the brass pipe I used to provide the centering sleeves for each of the bolts. There were a number of places where I used the JB to straighten the panel by routing out a long groove, laying in the JB, then holding the panel flat as that brand of killer epoxy cured for 24 hours. 

 The front of the panel had eight or ten places where there were a lot of little side by side cracks.  I ground out each tiny crack with a Dremmel tool, then filled it in with auto body filler and sanded it smooth. This sand-fill-sand-fill-sand process went on for a couple of days.... Then it was time to prime-sand-prime for a while, and finally give it three coats of color.  Pretty good, huh?

 Each of the instruments were reconditioned. Here is the full set, ready to install in the car.

And here are the four major instruments sitting in the repaired and repainted mounting panel. All the warning lights--not shown in this photo--were also reconditioned--they were just as grubby as the rest of the module [see photo one--above].  The owner could have just whacked out a panel out of aluminum and screwed it to the instrument panel of his Saab 96, but chose to have me do the job right...and you can see the results. Reminds me of a sign I saw one time on the shop of an old time welder/blacksmith:  "I can mend anything but a broken heart."

SAAB 99 SPEEDOMETER RECONDITIONING

 SAAB speedometer reconditioning time again, but this time a SAAB 99 EMS speedo!
These units are full of plastic gears [typical of bean counter work at VDO, I assume] and in the top photo you can see the END of one [of 2] bad plastic gears in this speedo. It is the white gear between the two spiral gears.

This is the speedometer out of the 78 EMS. All looks good here.

 The top [main] register has a grey, toothed gear at the right end --it is mostly lead and is pressed onto the register shaft. After umpteen years of work, it loses its grip
--literally--and the odometer stops odometering.  I replace that gear--using a number of very special puller and pusher and holder tools--with a gear made of some modern, miracle plastic that is tough and won't slip on the shaft.

This photo shows the bad [cracked and slipping] small, white gear, the main register shaft, and just inside the speedometer frame, the bad [also slipping] part lead drive gear. I replaced both gears, lubed the unit, set the odometer to the  figure the customer wanted, then reassembled it and calibrated the speed. Every speedometer has a specific gear ratio. The master VDO book [which I have] shows speeds for the speed needle, given various input speeds [from the speedometer cable]. I use a calibrated input speed, and set the speed needle to agree with the VDO figure for that speedo's gear ratio.   No guess work.  We all like the speedometer to read right. This one is ready for another 87,000 miles.... 

V W "PODS", CLOCK AND SPEEDOMETER [1950] RECONDITIONING

 Ancient V W speedometers, clocks and their mount "pods" seem to find me no matter how good I hide. This shows how they look when I get them....UGH! Nasty! But I guess if I'd been sitting around in an old, musty 1950 V W all these years I'd look a lot worse! Time to make 'em look and work good....

 V W did things differently in 1950...above is the flip side of the speedometer pod, and the photo shows the bakelite casting, with the bosses for the three switches and the four warning lights, plus some crusty 1950 wires....

 AHA! All better now! New wires, even. This particular V W obviously had an accessory item of some sort taking power off the input connection [No. 30] of the ignition switch. The old, inline fuse holder was kaput so I installed a new one [the red fuse holder to the left of the speedometer pod]. They're ready to go back into the old VeeDub.

[Drumroll...] And here they are--almost as nice as when they were first installed in Der Beetle back in 1950.  Cool, huh?

SPEEDOMETER RECONDITIONING--MERCEDES-BENZ

 

 This is the instrument module from a '78 Mercedes Benz 450SL. It speedo's but it's speedo don't odo.  Drat! So 'twas time to get inside the bugger and work my magic on it. Out with the demon tweak tools!

 This is the flip side of the instrument module. Clearly, a whole lotta screws have to come out to get to just the speedometer.

 Here the speedometer is out of the module. If the speedometer was all that needed attention, that's as far as I'd have to go. But life ain't that simple. This critter was dirty and dusty INSIDE the plastic face plate, so it all had to come apart. In addition to the photos, I made a couple of pages of illustrated notes so I had some chance of getting it all back together on the first pass.....

Here is the bugger all apart. A lot of cleaning was necessary on ALL the internal parts of the module, and then I reconditioned the speedometer itself [lower left in the photo above].

 So, after a lot of cleaning, wiping, dusting and polishing--along with liberal amounts of questioning the ancestry of the designer of this conglomeration of parts--it's done, pretty and ready to go get dusty and grimy once again in a drop top Merc.    And...the odo now odo's---HA!

VW VINTAGE VDO SPEEDOMETER REBUILD

I got into a mini-production line fit of rebuilding Volkswagen VDO speedometers. This is the mess of nasty, corroded, gummed-up parts of two speedometers from so-called "Type 3" bugs-- the Fastback and Squareback VW's of the 1960's.

Note the discoloration of the plastic "glass", which was caused by demon rust on the metal panel that supports the plastic. Both of these speedos were in pretty rough shape. The input shafts were seized up and the old grease was about the consistency of dry clay soil. I had to build a couple of new special tools for these two, even though many of their "innards" are very similar to the VDO speedos used in Saabs.

Above is one of NINE pages of sketches I made as I disassembled, cleaned, adjusted, re-lubed and reassembled these speedometers. I do this on EVERY speedometer TYPE that I rebuild--the first time I encounter one. Makes great reminder information for the NEXT time I get one of them in for reconditioning. I could never see the point of reinventing the wheel....

Here are the two reconditioned Type 3 Volkswagen speedometers. Other than some very minor scratches on the plastic "glass", they're completely reconditioned, calibrated and ready to go--good as new!

SPEEDOMETER 1.5

I find that a fair percentage of speedometers I receive for reconditioning have broken speed needles. This one happens to be for a VW Beetle, shown with the stainless outer ring, seals and trim plate removed.The speed needle is a little short, though only on one end.....

These speed needles are made of unobtainium, so it was up to me to figure out how to make new needles, which had to be not only light, but shaped exactly like the originals and the same color.

The first order of business is to remove the needle without damaging the face of the speedometer. I use my special puller for that job, shown here. This particular speedo is a VDO for a Saab, but all the analog VDO speed needles--from Audi to Volvo--use the same needle mount system, so their needles can be removed with the same tool.

I make up a super light needle blank with the same cross-section as the original needle [at bottom in the photo]. Next up in the photo is a needle center cap with what is left of an old needle, plus one of my needles, sanded to the correct cross section, but not quite small enough. At the top is a finished, repaired needle, ready for installation. I get the length, shape and section exactly the same as the stock speed needle.

This is the VW speedometer, reconditioned and with the new speed needle installed. I set this odometer at 00000, at the owner's request. I also provide the owner with a data sheet showing all the work that was done, plus the original, and current odometer readings, since some states are "picky" about this sort of thing, and demand such documentation.

SPEEDOMETER 1.4

I've just finished rebuilding four speedometers for Saab, and, surprisingly enough, for Volkswagen owners [!]. All these instruments were built by VDO, of course, and while they have similar "innards", there are important differences. So I have to use different techniques on each one.

This one [above] is from a Saab Sonett III. Just visible is the SAAB logo, right under the trip register.

This one is from a "Type 3" VW. You know, the Squareback and Fastback models.

This VDO unit is from a VW Beetle, when VW was trying to convince buyers the car would go 90 mph. The first USA Beetle speedos only were calibrated to 80.

This one is from a Porsche 914. These VW-Porsche speedos caused me to design and build a whole NEW raft of special wee tools, but that's the only way to do it right. I also do a speed vs mph calibration on every speedometer and give the owner a complete rebuild data sheet.

So why am I doing VW-Porsche speedometers? Well, like a whole lot of people over 60, I have owned a number of those cars. Lessee....hmmm....3 Beetles, a Westphalia bus and a '61 Super 90 Porsche coupe. Quite a number of Euro cars of the 1950's, 60's and 70's used the VDO instruments and I figured VDO didn't reinvent the wheel for every manufacturer they sold instruments to. Once I got into the speedos a while back, my suspicions were confirmed. See--I can have even more fun with speedometers now--HA!