Re: odometer cable

[silbey@colnago.asd.sgi.com (Alex Silbey)]

On Sep 9, 10:10am, rob@lfs.loral.com wrote:
> Subject: Re: odometer cable
> (Reposting - most of original post lost...)
>


> Carl, what did you krazy glue to fix yours? With the speedo removed I
> still  can't get to most of the odometer very easily. Did you have to
> remove the faceplate?
>
> I have thought about deep-sixing the whole OXS mechanism since I usually
> change the sensor before the light goes on anyway and get tired of having
> to remove the instrument cluster to reset it. The only reason I
> didn't do this the SECOND time I fixed the odometer is that it looked like
> a good way to find out how much a new speedometer would cost.  :-(
>
> Thanks for any info.
>
> Robert Patrick                      '84 5000 S - 141,700 miles and holding
:-)
> Loral Federal Systems - Manassas

Rob, I posted the original solution and said I was going to be diving back
in over the weekend.  Well, I dove in.

I took off the entire OXS mechanism, including shafts and gears and so on.
This allowed me to better figure out what was going wrong.  I also removed
the faceplate.  When you remove the speedo needle, be sure you mark the
relationship between the shaft and the pointer, because there's no other
way to make sure you put it back pointing to the right number.  I found this
out the hard way.

I ended up trying two solutions.  The first one, which I thought was simply
ingenious, was to glue a lock washer onto the gear that gets pushed out.
That way, if the shaft were pushed out, the lock washer would gradually push
against the side of the speedo housing and push the shaft back in.  The glue
on the washer failed after 500 miles.

So last weekend's brute force solution is to glue a wood spacer into the gap
between the white plastic speedo housing and the clear part behind the face
plate, effectively preventing the gear from being pushed out.

While I had this apart, I noticed that the reason for the gear/shaft being
pushed out is that the secondary shaft with 5 or 6 small gears on it (above
the main odometer shaft) is bent.  I didn't want to tempt fate by straightening
the shaft, as it appears fragile.

On a completely different topic, I've been reading this mail list for a couple
of months, and y'all have restored my interest in cars and in Audis.  I've
been reading the drivel on rec.autos.* since 1986, and the quality of the
discussion has gone through the basement over the years.  Soooooo many
bozos!

This is very different - informed opinions, real-world experience and a shared
misery -- the love of a fine, but flawed car.

You've given me the incentive to go after all the little problems in my car,
so that after last weekend's work, my 120K mile '86 5000 CS (non-turbo) is
absolutely squeak/rattle-free, the A/C is fixed, speedo/odo are working, and
she's got a new wax job.  Thanks!

Happy Audi-ing!

Alex


-- 
Alex Silbey