Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Speedo grinding sound

I undid my speedo cable (from the back of the speedo)to replace the broken plastic loop on the front fender.
After I reconected the speedo cable to the back of the speedo I took it for a spin.There was a loud grinding type sound coming from the speedo,I took the cable compleatly off the bike,took apart the inner and outer cable ,then greased the cable and back of the speedo (blue) gears.Its still making that loud sound.It was fine until I took that cable off.Any sugestions as to how to fix it or what I may have done wrong?

Just had that open myself, thought I had a bad cable but turned out the speedo drive at my wheel was bad. The washer that drives mine was bad and took out the drive. As for the grinding sound you have, really seems hard to have put that together wrong and my first thought was the cable not seated correctly. If you did it a 2nd time seems you wouldn't do that twice. Did you take a good look at the gears when you had it apart? Any play where they ride? Teeth worn or chipped?

No the blue gears on the back of the speedo look good,I greased them up prety good too.I thought the cable wasnt seated right at first too but I dont know if thats it.The noise is definatly coming from the back of the speedo.I thought it might be the cable but why would it go bad just by undoing it?
The speedo works fine(no bouncing needle).

Try loosening the cable from the back of the speedo head to see if the noise goes away. Also, is the inner cable properly inserted in the drive at the front axle. If the inner cable is up too high, it might make contact (bottom out) with the 90 degree angle drive on the back of the speedo head and cause a buzzing noise - just a thought...

Loosened the cable a little,bingo!
Noise is gone for now.

If it acts up again, remove the inner cable and shorten it an 1/8 of an inch with a dremel and cut off wheel. It is too long and is bottoming out in your speedo.

Sounds to me like you should pop the bottom loose and make sure it is able to seat all the way on the drive. The cable shouldn't need to be cut.

This may be a little late but hopefully some one browsing can benefit from this information. First of all do not cut any thing. I found out (the hard way) a couple of days ago when I put the front wheel back on after getting new tires put on. You have to get the cable in just right, especially when it slides out. After jimmying it a little bit it slides all the way in. If it does not go all the way in and you force it will make that high pitched grinding noise.

In my case I had over tightened the cable going into the back of the speedo.Half a turn off and the noise was gone.