escort speedometer needle flailing

[dan fitz]

I take care of a 91 escort and a 93 taurus, both had speedometers with needles flying back and forth, cables were pulled and lubed to no avail. Speedometer shops in Phoenix estimated $200+ to take the head out and lube the innards, saying they were familiar with the problem with these speedo heads. Decided to try it myself, doing the taurus first. Took some time to get into the speedo head from the front, but was able to do it without breaking the plastic panels, etc. The speedo is very open, very simple inside so I put a couple drops of castrol synthetic motor oil in the spots where I imagined there could be drag and it's been fine since. Repeated the process with the escort recently, had to take the steering wheel off to get the plastic out of the way, but same design, couple drops of oil and it's been fine since. The escort took a couple hours to get the faceplate with the speedo head out, including unclipping the cable at the transmission so I could pull it out far enough to unclip it from the back of the head and work on it. The electrical plugs can be a bit difficult to unclip from the panel pieces as you're working but it's relatively straightforward. I don't remember having to take the steering wheel off on the taurus, maybe because it has a tilt adjustment. Hope this can save someone a few bucks.

[dougand3]

Thanks for the info, Dan. It's good to do it yourself and save bucks.