Odometer quit ?

[Hrvatin]

I went for a short ride yesterday, about 30 miles, and just before arriving home, I noticed the odometer wasn't moving.  The speedo works fine, no jerky movements, very smooth.  
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Ron.

[Bob_Roller]

Common problem with these bikes, the wheels with the numbers on them start slipping on their shaft and the oometer quits .

Speedometer needs to be taken apart and the wheels secured to the shaft with adhesive .

One of our members here, Wirespokes repairs speedometers, if it's not something you want to get involved with .

[montmil]

Earth to Wirespokes. Come in, Flash...

[Luca]

Common problem with these bikes, the wheels with the numbers on them start slipping on their shaft and the oometer quits .

Speedometer needs to be taken apart and the wheels secured to the shaft with adhesive .

Not exactly.  The number wheels need to spin freely on their shaft.  If they were all stuck to the same shaft, they would all have to turn over a digit at the same time.  You'd go from 00000 to 11111, to 22222 etc.  Plus, the whole thing would jam up because of the white plastic intermediate gears.

The number wheels in both the odometer and trip meter should SPIN FREELY

The problem is that the grey, metal drive gear on the right hand end (looking into the gauge) of the shaft has slipped, and it is that gear that drives both the odometer  and the trip meter.  The intermediate gears turn over the next, larger digit when the smaller one starts over at Zero.

In my speedo, the metal gear had slid along the shaft, letting the number wheels slide along the shaft, disengaging the intermediate gears and going willy nilly.  Rust had also built up and seized the trip meter gears.  I shimmed the number wheels to keep things together... senor Wirespokes offered me his wisdom on that metal gear after I had put the speedo back together.  For now it has bitten the shaft where it stands and held up to several hundred miles, but I didn't properly fix it.

[nhmaf]

+1 with Luca - it is most often that the metal gear on the end has migrated on the shaft and is either slipping on the shaft or the teeth aren't meshing properly with the drive gear and have worn off the edge that was engaging.

[Luca]

As nhmaf said, those white plastic intermediate gears will wear... especially when not meshing properly.  The first gear, that drives the 1's digit wheel was a bit chewed up on mine, but not too bad... so I filed it smooth again.  I'm pretty sure I've seen a set of those white gears for sale on the internet.

The drive sequence for the odometer is:  metal gear, first intermediate gear, ones digit wheel, second intermediate gear, tens digit wheel, third intermediate gear, hundreds digit wheel, etc.

If the first intermediate gear on the odometer was chewed up but the metal drive gear was still stuck to the shaft, the trip meter should still work.  That metal gear also drives the trip meter via a small brass spur gear.  The small brass gear drives the large plastic wheel that is to the right hand side of the 1/10 white trip meter wheel.

There could also be a problem upstream of the odometer with one of the worm drive gears that get their rotation from the speedo cable... but I've never heard of that being a problem.  The speedo magnetic rotor that moves the needle only has one set of gears between it and the speedo cable.

The only real way to tell is to pull the thing apart.  You can gently chuck the brass fitting that the speedo cable engages with a drill and spin it COUNTER CLOCKWISE to see where the motion stops.  While doing it by hand is possible, 1800 rpm at the cable equals about 60-65 mph equals 1 mile per minute.  There is a whole lot of reduction going on in there!

I promised an article on my findings, and started to write one... just haven't gotten around to finishing it.

[Julio A.]

The metal gear on mine was slipping a year or so ago. I tried super glue, the gear was loose after 300kms.

I was afraid of using a stonger adhesive since that metal gear meshes with plastic gears. If for some reason there was really something binding up, the first plstic gear will bear the brunt of it. So I super glued it again and it miraculously held until now.

[Luca]

You could try using a dab of epoxy or knurling the shaft a bit with plier where the gear fits over it, combining it with adhesive for an even better bond.

Wirespokes, the motometer repair guy, said that he drills and pins the gear to the shaft for a permanent fix.  That's something I'd probably leave to the master

[montmil]

Julio... that's not an Airhead you're straddling in your new avatar!  

[Julio A.]

Monte, Its just good for the looks and for picking up girls, for everything else, I still use the R65.  

[montmil]

Monte, Its just good for the looks and for picking up girls, for everything else, I still use the R65.  

"good for the looks and for picking up girls"

OK, Julio, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around "for everything else". What's left for you young guns? [smiley=beer.gif]