speedo cable

[EuropatcSPECIAL]

Good afternoon all
                              on the 365 gearbox what holds the cable into the gearbox housing? The cable has given up the ghost and its just pushed in, no retaining clip or anything
I know one of you will know
thanks in anticipation
Stuart

[BDA]

IIRC, there is either a small bolt or a roll pin that is installed perpendicular to the axis of the driving shaft from the tranny.

I believe the cables are available, but there seems to be evidence that the plastic drive gears in the tranny are subject to old age. I've seen a few people on the lotuseuropa yahoo group complain about that and it also happened to me in my NG3. Of course when that happens, you have to open up the tranny and clean out all the shards of plastic.

You may want to consider some alternatives. Speedhut (speedhut.com) sells a GPS speedo that you can customize to look similar to the original Smiths.  It is a little bit bigger than the original but a poster on this forum was able to make it work. He wrote up his experiences somewhere here. Smiths makes an electronic speedo to which you can add a GPS antenna (I got mine from APT Instruments. http://www.gaugeguys.com/). The latter is more expensive but you have a speedo that is much closer to the original and fits the hole in the instrument binnacle.

[EuropatcSPECIAL]

Thank you BDA I will consider that option if it turns out to be more than the cable
Stuart

[Grumblebuns]

A relatively long bolt screws in from the back of the tranny bracket securing the speedo cable per the pictures.

[EuropatcSPECIAL]

GRUMBLEBUNS your a star, excellent clearly mine is missing. A picture is as good as a thousand words
thanks again
Stuart

[3929R]

Thanks from me as well. My speedo cable is twisted and kinked where it enters the trans. I've been dragging my feet in addressing it, afraid the plastic drive gears caused the cable to bind. I don't really want to open the trans at this point.

If the gears are toast, could backing out the bolt and pulling out the cable cause the plastic drive gears to drop off into the trans?

By the way, I've been using the Ulysse Speedometer app on my Android phone and it works great.

[BDA]

I would think that if your cable is kinked, it's not going to turn so I'd take it out. I don't know, but I'd expect the gears to go before the cable does. Taking the speedo cabled out shouldn't cause the gears to drop off. The risk is that they get shredded. I'm not sure if age is the only thing that causes their demise. I suspect that drag from the cable may aggravate the problem. In any case, if they go, the tranny has to come apart.

This got me wondering how much of a problem it really is and if my memory that several other owners had reported their gears going was accurate. I don't want to cause anybody to go through a lot of trouble and/or money to fix something that probably won't break. I did a search on the online Knowledgebase looking for postings from people who's gears shredded but I didn't see any (that's not necessarily the whole story as  all the lotuseuropa group posts may not be in the knowledgebase yet), but I did find a few threads about replacement gears and having new ones made. If you're concerned, you might want to email Steve Veris (steve.veris@sbcglobal.net). I believe he had some speedo gears made and he probably has better information about this than I. I do know that mine did shred in my NG3.

[3929R]

There is no way my cable is going to turn at all. It is 150% bound up and destroyed. I had plans to buy a new cable from RD ($79) but my KnowledgeBase explorations led me to guess that the plastic gears were likely to be destroyed as well. Which is why I haven't dealt with it.

Next time I'm at my garage, I'll pull the cable and see what I can see. If my plastic speedo gears are shredded, they've been that way since before I pulled the car out of storage. I didn't find any plastic bits when I changed the gear oil, but I guess it is possible that any bits were drained out previously. Could plastic bits cause any other damage?

[BDA]

When my gears shredded, I only had 3rd and 4th gear out of 5. If your gears have bought it, I think you'd know in a hurry, though I suppose it is possible that for some reason the shards might not have migrated in the case. For me, there wasn't any other damage and I wouldn't expect it to cause any. The shards of plastic just had to be cleaned out of the case. I would at least pull the cable before I drove it.