Cold-Weather Speedometer Noise

[Tylinol]

Hi everyone. First things first: 1992 Eclipse GS. FWD, 1.8, Manual, 150k, Cruise Control.

I've had mine about a year and a half and put 30k on it. It's a great car that gets 38mpg and has had nothing more serious than a head gasket at 140k. But there's one thing it does that is VERY ANNOYING: the speedometer makes noise.

This only happens in the winter, or about 50 degrees and below. It started off more mildly, with a bouncy speedometer needle, but eventually got bad enough that the needle flew off its peg and is sitting at the bottom of the gauge cluster. That was about a year ago. Now it is insanely loud at speeds over 25mph.

I pulled the gauge cluster last month to try to fix it. Much easier than I thought, and I lubricated the plastic male and female ends of the cable and cluster. No joy.
Next I tried the transmission end, and lubricated that as well. No joy. Is there anything else I can pull apart and lubricate to get this to stop? As far as I can tell new speedometer cables are NLA and my junkyards are fresh out of 1.8 DSMs.
Thanks.

 

[luv2rallye]

If you think it's the cable, pull the inner core out, wipe off, and lightly coat the whole length with grease. You might first disconnect from gauge and run around the block to see if it's really the cable or the gauge.

 

[Tylinol]

I have removed the speedometer cable; is there a way to separate the insulation and plastic from the inner core? They seem to be one piece.

 

[luv2rallye]

Someone with a 1g will have to help you there as I have a 2g which has no speedo cable. Or maybe call or take it to a speedo shop.

 

[dsmspickdad]

Apply some graphite grease or powder to cable head coming into the gauge cluster. Do not use to much. You can buy this at NAPA or any auto parts store. Speedometer lube.

 

[Tylinol]

This issue is now resolved. Graphite didn't quite do the trick, although it has helped before on my other cars. Here's what I did:

First, I soaked the whole thing on oil overnight. Made a bit of a mess. You could probably skip this step...

Then I wrapped the plastic peg at the end of the cable in a tiny bit of electrical tape. This closed up the tolerances between the cable peg and its input on the speedometer that it does not slip. The speedometer now works, and the odometer and trip-odometer are still working as well.

A 4G37 '92 Eclipse optioned exactly like mine showed up in the junkyard this weekend, so I did get a spare cable out of it too (in addition to a 150k 4G37 engine that will be rebuilt...) but the tape method may work if a junkyard cable is for whatever reason not an option, or if you are cheap and don't want to give Mitsubishi $30 for a cable!

 

[DSM1G90]

I've done that trick a few times - yank one off of a busted DSM to replace a speedo cable.

Right now, with it being cold, mine is doing the "bouncy needle" trick also. Thus, going to have to take it off and soak it down with "Tri-flo" to loosen up the hardened grease inside the cable housing.