Erratic, jumpy speedometer

[jelbon]

Over the last few months my speedometer has been reading erratically and making noises when it was cold, everything operated fine once the van was warmed up. The noise was very loud, when it first occurred I thought my drivers side wheel bearings were thrashed.
I hoped that it was probably oil/grease migrating up the cable into the back of the speedometer. Which proved to be the case.
Fairly easy fix, just remove the speedo/tach cluster, remove the speedometer from the cluster and clean the grease out with brake clean and paper towels.
Don't attempt to clean the speedo without removing it from the cluster, brake clean will cloud the clear plexi glass.
When reassembling the speedo cluster be sure that the speedometer and tach needles point to zero, otherwise they will read incorrectly after re assembling.
Prior to re assembling go under the van and undo the speedometer cable from the transmission tailshaft, remove the inner cable completely, spray brake clean into the speedometer cable outer casing from the dashboard end to clean out residual oil and grit, don't be shy with the brake clean. Wipe the inner cable and lubricate with thin film of light oil. re-install the inner cable and assemble the dash.

[Paule]

Awesome!

I have been having identical symptoms with my speedo. Especially the noise (so much noise!) and thinking it's the wheel or hub. Thanks for the fix.

pe

[Jedidiahwiebe]

I would like to share my experience, and here seems a relevant place to do so. My speedometer cable fell out a while back... Just unscrewed itself from the transfer case and the inner cable just plain 'ol slipped out and vanished while driving. So I ordered a used one from The Graham at CoombsCountry Auto. It cost me 50 bucks plus 12 for shipping. What I ended up doing (after reading this thread, and many others all over the internets) was simply removing the inner from the sheath that it came with. As I removed it I put it directly into a clean plastic bag, then I sprayed brake clean, and WD40, and finally silicone lubricant spray down from the top, and blew it all out thoroughly with an air compressor. Very thoroughly. Then as I slowly removed it from the plastic bag, being surgically careful to not get dirt on it - I slid it into my original sheath and applied the lightest tiniest coating of this grease that I had, which is for weed eater gearheads (I know not as ideal as the grease for a weed eater flexshaft, but an insanely tough, and expensive grease nonetheless) until the new cable was inserted fully into the old sheath. Then I put it back together and this time made sure that the spedometer showed zero (instead of the 15 that it always used to say. And fingers crossed it'll work.

Just thought I'd add to the discussion!
Jed