4 replies to this topic

[whawes]

Speedometer cables have been causing me a bit of a headache recently.

I have two Minis at present - a 1983 Mayfair and a 1972 Clubman GT, both had two offset gauges when I bought them. I've now changed the Clubman to a 3 gauge pod with integrated speedo, which came from a 1986 car. All 3 speedos are known working items.

Both cars had a speedo cable with a white connector at the clock end when I bought them, like this:

GSD487

The connector pushes on and locks into place by turning clockwise.

The cable on the Clubman was a bit worse for wear, so I ordered the above cable from Mini Spares this week. The cable that turned up was labelled as GSD487, but had a grey push on connector at the clock end like this one:

GSD415

The grey connector is obviously different, but the description for GSD415 says it was fitted "as standard from 1976-1989 cars" with offset clocks so I thought I'd give it a try. Having connected it at the engine end, I verified that the inner cable was spinning when on the move. I then tried connecting all 3 of my speedometers in turn, but none of them works with this cable (all work with the other cable).

I've now confirmed that GSD487 should in fact be a cable with the white connector - it was packed incorrectly.

So - are there two types of offset speedo? If so, can anyone shed light on roughly which cars/years they were fitted? Assuming one or more of my clocks were made before 1990, which I believe to be the case, it seems as though the Mini Spares site could be wrong here.

[Guess-Works.com]

White plastic connector - Nippon made clocks

Grey Plastic - Smiths

Metal Screw - Smiths centre clock.

[whawes]

White plastic connector - Nippon made clocks

Grey Plastic - Smiths

Metal Screw - Smiths centre clock.

OK, looks like I have 3 x Nippon clocks then.

So were Smiths and Nippon offset clocks fitted during the same years, or is the Mini Spares site just plain wrong?

Also, do the Smiths offset clocks look noticeably different to the Nippon ones? The only Smiths clocks I ever recall seeing are the centre type, unless the offset ones are so similar I've just not noticed.

[Guess-Works.com]

The Smiths and Nippon off set clocks are not dissimilar, but are easily identifiable...

1. Smiths have "Smiths" printed on the front, in the middle of the Temp/Fuel clock
2. Nippon are a Full width speedo with numbers printed on the dial face, Smiths only have the kph scale printed on the face and the MPH number are printed on a separate ring..

I suspect that there is some cross over, where most Nippon are 3 clock setups and Smiths 2 clock, with the exception of models like the GT and mid 80's mayfairs.

[whawes]

The Smiths and Nippon off set clocks are not dissimilar, but are easily identifiable...

1. Smiths have "Smiths" printed on the front, in the middle of the Temp/Fuel clock
2. Nippon are a Full width speedo with numbers printed on the dial face, Smiths only have the kph scale printed on the face and the MPH number are printed on a separate ring..

I suspect that there is some cross over, where most Nippon are 3 clock setups and Smiths 2 clock, with the exception of models like the GT and mid 80's mayfairs.

Thanks for this.

The plot thickens, Mini spares now tell me they in fact do not stock the speedo cable with the white connector, only the grey one. They say this should work with Nippon clocks as well as Smiths clocks.

Do the Nippon clocks work with the grey connector? Maybe I'm missing something and there is some special technique required to fit the cable at the clock end, but I've not been able to get either of my cars' speedo working with this cable. The inner cable spins but the speedo needle stays on zero no matter how hard I push the connector on. Grr.