'80 Special Refit

So today I rode my XS650 in a memorial ride for the brother of a grade school classmate. In fact, she roped me into leading the ride... me, followed by half a dozen Harleys and one Victory. I noticed the speedometer (the one I got from bwthor) is a bit wonky... the needle was bouncing around, not holding steady like usual. Well, that's how the old one got before it got really crazy, spun around and broke the needle, and then emitted smoke. The old one was reading in the 18,000 mile range, and this one just turned over 18,000 miles... I suspect there's a pattern here.

I also noticed the other bikers seemed to be going kind of slow. I held up so that I didn't lose them. Of course, I expected the XS to outpace them all in the corners, even with the addition of my wife on the back, so I was expecting to have to slow down. But I couldn't run much over an approximate (given the bouncing) 50 MPH without getting way ahead of them.

So when the ride was over, I was talking to one of the Harley guys, and I said, "Hey, on that straight section of highway 15... what speed were you indicating?"

"65 or 70."

Ack. At that point I had been keeping the needle as close to 55 as I could.

Later my wife told me that she was sure I was going faster than I had on my Honda CB650 on the same roads... part of the route overlapped one of our semi-regular rides.

Makes me feel a little guilty. I really didn't intend to make those guys speed... oops.

SO I GUESS I need another speedo. Anyone have one lying around?
 
Spun it with a drill... nice and smooth. 30 bucks and you pay for the ride.

IMG_20200703_184415.jpg
 
Got plenny of em showing 30K plus and doing jus' fine. perhaps you should also replace the cable....
 
... just did the math, so to speak. The trip odometer was reset at a specific town, and I used Google Maps to retrace the route to where I stopped. The tripmeter now reads 66.2 and Google says it's a 65.8 miles trip, so the tripmeter (and assumedly, the regular odometer) are still reading correctly so far.

Still think the smartest thing to do is get another one though.
 
... just did the math, so to speak. The trip odometer was reset at a specific town, and I used Google Maps to retrace the route to where I stopped. The tripmeter now reads 66.2 and Google says it's a 65.8 miles trip, so the tripmeter (and assumedly, the regular odometer) are still reading correctly so far.
Still think the smartest thing to do is get another one though.

Hi Solo,
speedo needle has a magnet dragging it faster vs a spring holding it back so it's accuracy ain't it's strong feature.
OTOH, odometers are gear driven so they tend to read more truly.
 
So I'm guessing the magnet is on some kind of rotor, which runs on a bushing or bearing. If the bushing/bearing is worn or the lube has gone bad it could drag intermittently, causing the needle to bounce wildly. Is it possible to refurb one, I wonder?
 
SO here's the latest issue. Apparently there's some kind of pin in the neck of the turn signal to keep it facing the right way. The one for the left rear signal has gone south. Can anyone tell me what I need to get to fix this? I've checked the fiche and it doesn't seem to be a normally-separate part.
 
No, you can't get that little pin. Maybe you can make one from a nail or something. It's going to need to be a tight, interference fit so start with something a bit too big and sand/file it until it fits (tightly).
 
I fixed one with a small plain finishing nail, maybe inch and a quarter, the head was just the right interference fit to hold and the shaft was shortened appropriately to fit.
Either that or a few wraps of electrical tape, eh?
 
SO today I finally got around to fixing my spinny left rear turn signal. I tried a nail first, but it was too small, and the next one I tried was too big. Then I tried the kind of screw used to retain CD-ROM drives in computers (an M3-0.5) and it was also too small, but only just a little bit... and this led me to try a computer case screw, SAE 6-32, and it threaded in tightly and snugged up like it was meant to be there.

Wow. That was EASY. I could grind off the head, but I'm not going to bother. Looks okay as is.
 
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