Noisy Speedometer

[hercdriver]

I've had a noisy speedometer lately that was driving me crazy. Every time I'd get to about 30 MPH a sound similar to a dying bird would drown out just about every other noise in the car. From 30 to about 50 it started out as intermittent and became constant lately. Yesterday I'd had enough and decided to see if I could fix it before I sent it out to be reconditioned. I was fairly certain that it was the speedometer and not the cable due to how loud the noise was in the car. From here I had several options....

1. Recondition it. I did some research and found an ad for a guy in Pennsylvania that had several nice reviews about his work and also has very reasonable prices. If my lube fix doesn't hold up for long, I'll send it to him.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... id=1043541

2. Lube it. This is the road that I chose. It was a simple procedure that took about 20 minutes. The first thing I did was remove the speedometer cable and take reference picture to aid in putting it back together. Next was to remove the wiring. Two screws hold the speedometer in place. A gentle tug will break the seal between the dash and the rubber grommet on the face of the speedometer. Removed the speedometer through the trunk area and placed it on the bench. About 5 drops of 3in1 oil into the hole that the cable goes into is all that it needed. I took a small wire to work the oil down into the shaft and let it sit for about five minutes. Installation was just the reverse process. I took it out for a drive and was happy to hear that it worked well. There was no hint of the old noise.

Here's the picture I took.


Here's the 3in1 oil..


Hope this helps someone. I'll try to update the post if the noise returns.

Herc

[BlueOne]

Mine does that when its very cold outside. then it will go away.. never happens in the summer months tho.

[Blue Baron]

It will ... eventually.

[BlueOne]

Been 5 years now and doing well.

[DeeJaye1970]

This worked for me. I never had that noise problem until I disconnected the cable to do some wiring work. It was disconnected for a few days and when I hooked it all back up, I got the noise starting at 20 mph. I lubed it up like you describe and it's fine now. Easy. Thanks!