Counterclockwise speedometer

[DanEC]

My car came with a 160 mph Smiths clockwise speedometer and apparently they are not making a 180 clockwise speedometer currently (or for some time). It's not what I initially wanted, but for authentic appearance I'm mulling over going to the 180 counterclockwise Smith speedometer and adaptor. But, I'm hearing they are nothing but trouble and a headache. Seems the problems are a combination of sometimes in the 90 deg reversing adaptor and sometimes in the speedometer itself.

Anyone come up with a fix for this or developed an understanding of what the problem(s) are the result of? I have a 66 Corvette with a 90 deg angle drive on my tach drive cable and have never had any problems with it - but it mounts right at the distributor instead of at the tach.

Thanks

Dan

[Blas]

From my experiance, many problems with Smiths speedometers are related to the speedometer cables. Too sharp a bend in the cable housing can cause lots of problems - think smooth direction transitions. An inner cable thats too long and binding at one end can cause a jumpy needle too. Replacement inner cables that are wound in the wrong direction are another big problem. You can alway use a GPS for an accurate speed readout.

[cscobra]

I nearly went with the counter-clockwise speedometer, too, but ERA revealed to me that they have had multiple problems over the years with them. I did go with Smith's instruments (I like the look), but with the standard speedometer.

[DanEC]

Anyone have anything additional????

[Sledge]

Yes:

Get an electric CCW sweep speedometer and get rid of the cable altogether....

After two Autometer Speedos and 3 cables I finally bought the electric speedo from Kirkham and am very happy with it. It is not identical to all my other gauges but it is close enough and works great!

[601HP]

I have 13,000 miles on the car. I think I'm on my 3rd cable. The cable is a $5.00 item at the local auto parts store. You can find it in the HELP! rack section.

I'm on my second reverse gear box. One place wanted $79.00. I found the same unit made by the same manufacturer, at another Cobra parts seller for $45.00. I installed the new one, but it didn't reverse the cable.

I removed the new gear box and compared the old and new units. The input and output shafts were oriented differently when looking at the old and new gear boxes. I took the new one apart and re-oriented the input and output shafts. Now its a reversing unit. That took about 10 minutes to do.

I have the correct look, but have to deal with some minor nuisanance about every 5,000 miles. These failures are minor compared to some other stuff I've been plagued with over the years! My car's never been a wash and drive vehicle. Seems like there's always some tweaking needed.

David