Speedometer cable help

Brian VT said:

I pulled the cable and I am not finding one that matches it. It shouldn't be this difficult?
The place that seems to have every Ford speedo. cable known to man (partsgeek) doesn't even show one that matches (in length). The Ford dealer sites were the worst. Most don't even list a speedo cable. Using my VIN was no help either.

Mine is 78" long and has these ends. The closest I can find is 92" long. I don't think I should be bending it to make an extra 14" fit? Or do you think it'll work? If not then I'm at a dead end.

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I doubt the 72" would work. And the next option is 92".
But thank you for the effort.

IDIBRONCO said:

So try buying one for a 1988?

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I looked at what seems to be every Ford speedo cable from 1970 to 1999. Just 72" or 92" with the ends I need.

So I think this kit might work? Cut to size and stuff into my core.
Worth a try for $3.99 and in stock locally.

So I ran into something else odd when pulling the speedo cable out. There was another wire going through the same rubber grommet in the floor. I followed it up under the carpet, over the hump, and found this end just sitting there under the passenger carpet.
There are gauges just above there that someone installed. But this wasn't connected to anything. Just sitting under the carpet doing nothing.
I traced it the other way through the driver's floor and under the cab and it disappears up into a plastic conduit with other wires and goes up in front of the firewall and that all looks to be OEM.
What the heck is this cable?

Looks to be a cb antenna wire.

James

That makes sense. Thank you.
They did a good job of getting it into the OEM cable routing. Must have been a lot of extra work that most folks probably wouldn't bother with.

Your welcome. And thank you for sharing the link to that inner cable, you gave me an option to fix a tractor tach that the cable is no longer available.

James

Hopefully it works for both of us.

Here's a tip for you and others. Several years back, I had an old timer tell me that every few years, you should pull the inner cable out, clean out the housing, grease the inner cable and put it back. He said that would make it last longer. I feel that you should do that before installing the new cable. I think he said to spray carb cleaner through the housing to clean it out.

I had planned to lube the cable but I hadn't though about cleaning the housing. Thanks.
I just bought 9 tall cans of brake cleaner at a salvage store for $1.98/ea. I bought all they had. ;-)

I went to pull my core out of the housing. I grabbed the dashboard end. It slid out very easily. All 3' of it.
I went to the tranny end. There was barely any wire sticking out and it didn't want to come out. I worked at it with needle-nose pliers for a while and managed to slide it out a couple inches but it was a lot of pulling and twisting. I put that wire end in a vice and pulled/twisted on the housing as much as as dared to with fear of breaking off inside and then I'd be up a creek.
It finally came out. The core wires were all unraveled and twisted which is why it fought me so hard to come out.
So I sprayed brake cleaner in there to clean it. It didn't seem to be flowing freely. I pushed my new core in. It hit a stopper about 3' in. I guess there's a small piece stuck in there where the break happened. I made a mark on the housing where that was and pushed the core in from the other end. It made it to the same spot and stopped. Ugh. I guess I'm screwed.
Unless I can ram that blockage out with something like a 7' long coat hanger wire.

Rdnck84_03 said:

Your welcome. And thank you for sharing the link to that inner cable, you gave me an option to fix a tractor tach that the cable is no longer available.

James

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Well I guess I'm back to square 1 and my only option is the 92" cable and try to not put too much bend in it.
I can send you my core kit if you want. Send me a PM with your mailing address.

Brian VT said:

Well I guess I'm back to square 1 and my only option is the 92" cable and try to not put too much bend in it.
I can send you my core kit if you want. Send me a PM with your mailing address.

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I appreciate the offer but the shipping would probably cost as much as the part. Just hang it up, you may need it.

Not sure what all you have tried to get the broken one out. Something I did to get a control cable on my tiller unstuck was to coil it up and submerge the whole thing in a 10% gas/ 90%diesel mix for a couple weeks. Worked like new afterwards. May get yours freed up enough you can push it out with a piece of baling wire.

James

The core cable wasn't seized. It was twisted up inside the sheath until it broke.
I bought a new one (that is a bit longer than what I had because that's all that's available).
It fit fine and there were no sharp bends. It worked for about 2 miles and then I heard the same slight ticking sound right before it quit. I removed it and found the same thing. Twisted up inside until it broke.
I checked to see if that new core was lubed. It was not. So I blamed it on me for not lubing it and I ordered another one and lubed it this time. It was also working but I noticed that the speedo. needle was a bit bouncy at certain speeds.
That 2nd new cable lasted a few drives. Maybe 40 miles? I haven't removed it yet but I expect to find the same thing.

So...the tranny is turning the cable. I think that it's safe to assume that the cable is spinning fine until I connect it to the speedo.
So something in the speedo. must be causing enough resistance to twist up the cable and, eventually, break it.
Anyone here had the guts of the speedo./odo. apart? Is there something in there that I can lube or replace a bearing or something? Or am I looking at replacing the speedo. and/or the odo./trip gauge?

Use a tiny pocket screwdriver, and stick it in the square hole that the speedo cable probe goes into on the back of the cluster, and try spinning it. You don't have to force it in there, just see if it spins freely. Should rotate with very little effort. If it's pretty resistant to rotate, then that's probably the issue. As for lubing it, maybe hit it with dry lithium?