Speedo groan clarification

Hi,

I've been looking over the fixes for this. Dragin Tail says he shoved grease into where the cable goes using the cable. Yammer Dan did that but had no lasting success. Yammer, what did you do in the end?

RandyA says to put grease down into the bearing area. How? From which end - the inside or the bottom (cable fitting)? As an alternate you suggest pushing grease up the cable hole. I've found that to be a blind hole which does not lead to the bushing - how do you mean?

GeorgeS, your writeup also indicates to put lube in where the cable attaches. How do you effectively do that?

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=8296

I have tried the method of shooting oil up the housing with compressed air twice. First time was with motor oil, second was lighter household oil. In both cases I held the wheel end of the housing up as high as I could, dumped a bunch of the stuff in there, and then applied air pressure. Started with short bursts, then also tried longer application of air. I immediately installed the cable and ran it a little with a drill to help distribute the oil. I then let the excess drain from the housing. In neither case did it fix the problem, at least not longer than 3 or 4 days. It did not, however make a mess inside the speedo. I don't think there's any open hole from the cable attachment to the inside of the unit.

Please advise further before I tear into the thing!

Thanks, Jeremy

Jeremy, it is not a big deal to take the speedometer out of the dash assembly. In my opinion, with the speedometer out, you can see the bearing in question by looking down inside it. I use a moly type grease and it will work for years, unless the bearing has been run so long dry that it is damaged.

RandyA

Jeeze ... at first reading of the heading I figured you must been down in Florida around them snow birds parading around the beaches in theys speedo swimin suits ... I would groan too!

You get your cable greased?

Thanks Randy. By "down inside", do you mean looking from the vicinity of the spinning magnet inside the unit and putting the grease in there (as opposed to the cable attachment side)?

Jeremy

Thanks Randy. By "down inside", do you mean looking from the vicinity of the spinning magnet inside the unit and putting the grease in there (as opposed to the cable attachment side)?

 

Jeremy

Yep, when you look inside the speedometer where the cable come through, you will see where to put the grease, it is in the very bottom. Once you see where the grease goes, you will see what I mean about it might be possible to get grease in thru the cable hole if you had some way of getting it to spread out to where the bearing is. Maybe with a piece of bent wire. I have never been a fan of squirting oil up through the cable hole. There is a "main spring" just like a watch and it might affect the consistancy of the reading if oil got all over that spring.

RandyA

Ended up pulling mine to lube.

Well, I followed the procedures here. I posted this in another thread right after I did it:

The only good way to fix this is take the speedo out and put grease on the bushing on the inside of the speedometer at the very bottom where the cable comes thru.

I just did this. As Randy & George told me, it wasn't that bad. 45 min to get it out, an hour playing with it, an hour or so putting back together.

 

The thing I didn't like was that you can't take the bushing apart to really get grease inside of it. You can access both ends, but the inside (upper) end is down between parts. So here's what I did. I sprayed WD40 on the lower end only (where the cable goes), spun the bushing, and then blew it out with air. Repeated a couple times, to clean out the bearing and at least get something thin that would penetrate the entire length of the bushing. Be careful where you spray stuff and blow air or you'll make a mess out of your speedo (it doesn't get any worse than that :-) Then I sprayed some chain lube on both ends, Honda stuff which is really cool. It goes on extremely thin and then evaporates to leave behind a clear teflon and moly coating. I spun the bushing by hand and repeated a couple times. I let that sit a while to evaporate. Then I did my best to shove in wheel-bearing grease with moly. On the bottom end I worked it in with my finger and tried to force a little up the bushing. On the top I had to use a jeweler's screwdriver to put some grease on the end of the bushing, so I'm not really sure how effective it was in getting any down the bushing. Again, I spun and wiggled the bushing by hand to help the lube work in.

It's been a couple weeks of cold weather now where I'm pretty sure it would have groaned before the fix, and no groaning. Yay!

Jeremy

I lubed my, with the speedometer on the bike. I used a 3 foot long piece of fuel line, I think it was 3/8 “ ID, it has to fit tight on the speedometer. I removed the speedometer cable. Then I slide the hose up on to the speedometer and taped the other end up to the left mirror. I filled the hose with ATF fluid and let it set over night. I rode the bike about 100 miles and then did it again.

Earl

86 VR

00 RSV

Me too, did something similar, twice with same results. Needs grease, in both ends of the bushing.

Jeremy

I think pulling it is best way to go. Winter job. Catch it before it starts to squaw. Get the Tach while you are at it.

AFter 70k. I do not know if the sound I hear is the "speedo moan". Just a sound at low speed, especially when cornering. Could just be my fender extender touching the tire. Or tire noise. As I have always had the speedo cable greased. I would have hoped a spec or 2 came off to keep the bushing good. Wish there was a picture posted of this bushing. Is this simply the square hole for the cable???

I have spare speedos off other yamahas...maybe I will see this bushing on a spare.Or I may just take the lower cable off and yank the innerds out,and see if the sound disappears.

Well if Squirting Oil up into the bushing where you disconnect the cable, won't stop the noise---

then you will have to Remove the entire Instrument panel, open the two halves, a nd get to the speedo Unit. Hand lubricate all the moveing parts.

Inspect the bushing. Maby it to far gone to fix with just lubricant.

But, I don't think so.

If you remove it, the also replace all the light bulbs inside th Inst panel. and also do the Resolder Job, on the the Circuit board, that has all the diodes on it.

As I have always had the speedo cable greased. I would have hoped a spec or 2 came off to keep the bushing good. Wish there was a picture posted of this bushing. Is this simply the square hole for the cable???

Yup, me too, but it doesn't. I think that's where lubing the upper end of the bushing (inside the speedo) comes in - the lube doesn't make it up that far evidently.

Pics, thanks to GeorgeS:

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=8296

The square hole is a blind hole, no lube will go thru there. That hole is in the rotating part, of course, which rides in a bronze bushing.

Jeremy

Just F.Y.I., I had problems with my speedometer also. I made a simple tool to get the grease into it. I took the end of an old speedometer cable and attached a zerk to it. Now with some pressure pushing the grease into the bushing I turned the piece that the cable spins with my thumb to help the grease get into the bushing. I greased it up good, but from time to time I would still hear that aggravating noise. It turned out it wasn't the speedometer making the noise again. It was the tachometer! I haven't taken it apart to lube yet.

Anybody else had any problems with noisy tachs?

Just F.Y.I., I had problems with my speedometer also. I made a simple tool to get the grease into it. I took the end of an old speedometer cable and attached a zerk to it. Now with some pressure pushing the grease into the bushing I turned the piece that the cable spins with my thumb to help the grease get into the bushing. I greased it up good, but from time to time I would still hear that aggravating noise. It turned out it wasn't the speedometer making the noise again. It was the tachometer! I haven't taken it apart to lube yet.

 

Anybody else had any problems with noisy tachs?

I must say that I can not understand how a tach could make any noise, especially like the speedo does when it needs grease. That is a new one on me.

RandyA

Ya, I thought it was a bit odd myself. When/if I figure out why it's doing it, I'll post another thread.

Wow, how did you attach the zerk to the cable? And did you do this greasing with the speedo disassembled?

Jeremy

Ya, I did the greasing with speedo taken apart. For the cable and zerk, I just used the metal part of the cable that attached to the speedo and brazed the zerk to the end that was crimped onto the cable. It wasn't the best job, but it did the trick. I was gonna redo it later and do a post on it.

Look at it this way.

On a 1st Gen, if over 50K, open the Instrument panel, hand lube the speedo, replace all the bulbs, resolder all the connections on the circuit board, for the warning circuits. ( Not the LED Board ) . Just the one that has two cables pluged into it.

In other words, greese the bushing in the Speedo, and greese the drive cable, before it Self Destructs.

Do it sooner, or do it later and pay up. !!!