Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Speedometer Off

This wonderful hunk of junk from said he had a gto rear end put in, and this is what causes a 10 MPH speedometer offset (due to different gear sizing for the speedo linkup) is there a way to correct this problem easily (if indeed this is the case)?

A: The reason your speedometer is off by 10 MPH is that when the rear end was swapped out, a new one with a different gear ratio was put in it’s place. The gears that drive the speedometer are loacted in the transmission. To correct this problem, you just need to install the speedometer gear for the differential ratio you currently have in your car. Claasic Industries sells these gears and they are easy to replace. Just tell them the type of trans you have and the gear ration in the rear end.

Any proposed updates, changes, pictures, and/or corrections, please use our comment section below (may need to click on permalink to access comments feature). Information is subject to change and offered as is without any warranties or guarantees. Please review our Term's Of Use for more information.

Q: Speedometer Off – Revisited

I have a 1968 Bird and the speedometer is off 6 miles an hour fast. I have 14′ rims and 215/70/14 tires. I’m missing something here. Could someone tell me why its off? I have the 160 speed-o. Is that whats off, or is it something else?

A: I suspect the speedometer gear drive in the transmission is not correct for the current combo (tire size). Just because your running 14″ tires doesn’t mean that they are the original profile. You can try to fix it yourself by changing the drive gear or there should be a shop in your area that can do it for you and certify the speedo. Another option would be to go with reproduced originals instead of correcting the speedo.

A: Same problem here but fixed with a different colored drive gear in the trans, I cant remember which color slowed my speedo but they are bout eight bucks apeice and can be found at most gm dealers. It is the little plastic gear that is on the end of the speedo cable that conects to the trans.

A: Unless your trying to keep the car 100% original, it makes more since to get the tires you want and then correct the speedo. If you want to go to a comparable tire size as original, then check out: http://www.wrljet.com/tires.html

A: I agree with whoever said to pick the tires you like, then calibrate the speedo. But if you want original size tires here’s some advice.

Originals would have been E7014 or F7014, probably F7014. Here are some sizes that are similar:

A: If you have 215/70/14 tires, they should be pretty close to your originals and shouldn’t make you off by more than 1% or so. I would guess then that your speedo is off by 3.23/3.08 or 5% making it read about 74 when you’re driving 70. I’m going to include here an answer I posted on the classical pontiac site for a guy that swapped to 3.73 gears in case it helps.

I just did this for a 2.56 to 3.23 swap in a TH350. There are three ways to do this.

For the first one, find out exactly how far off it is… try using the odometer to check how many miles you read when traveling 10 miles according to mile markers. You should get a ratio like 2.25:1 (based on your 90 MPH at 40 MPH guess). Next, pull the speedo gear and housing out of the trans. Count the number of teeth on the gear (driven gear). Also, count the number of teeth on the gear it mates to on the output shaft of the trans (drive gear). Take the number of teeth on the driven gear and divide by the number on the drive gear. Lets say you get 35/19=1.84, now multiply by how far off your speedo is (like 2.25) and you get 4.14 (in this example). This is what the final driven gear to drive gear ratio needs to be. You may also need to change the driven gear housing since they only house ranges of gears like 36-39, 40-43, etc.

The second way to do this is to use one of these formulas:

Drive Gear = (.0495835 * Tire Dia * Driven Gear) / Gear Ratio.

OR

Driven Gear = (20.168 * Gear Ratio * Drive Gear) / Tire Dia.

And here’s a third way, call GM part supplier. They’ll want to know Gear Ratio, Tire Size, type of Trans and then he can give you GM part numbers for the gears and housing.

Any proposed updates, changes, pictures, and/or corrections, please use our comment section below (may need to click on permalink to access comments feature). Information is subject to change and offered as is without any warranties or guarantees. Please review our Term's Of Use for more information.

Q: Speedometer Off Error Calculation

Basically, if I got from the stock 225/70-15 to a 245/50-16 wheel/tire combo, will my speedo read faster or slower than I am actually going? Someone said there is like a 7% difference in the wheel/tire combo.

A: The 225 is the treadwidth in mm, the 70 is the aspect ratio (% sidwall of treadwidth), and the 15 is the rim diameter. With this, the overall assembly diameter and circumference is:

225/70-15 27.4″ diameter and therefor 172.16″ circ.
245/50-16 25.6″ diameter and therefor 161.14″ circ.

At 70 MPH with the stock assembly, the rear axle will spin approx 429.45 rpm.

At this same rpm (and same speed on the speedometer), the second setup will actually be going only 65.5 mph while the speedo will indicate 70mph, an error of about 6.8%.

A quicker way to determin the error is to simply ratio the assembly diameters:

1 – (25.6/27.4) = 0.0656 or about 6.6%.

Any proposed updates, changes, pictures, and/or corrections, please use our comment section below (may need to click on permalink to access comments feature). Information is subject to change and offered as is without any warranties or guarantees. Please review our Term's Of Use for more information.

Q: Speed-o Cable Lube

My speed-o-meter decided to quit on me. I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is. I’m planning on taking it apart this weekend to clean a lube. My question is this, what do you use to lubricate the cable? is there a special lube or do I just use a lot of graphite?

A: I did a clean and service on my cable a few months ago and what I did was pulled the housing and the cable. cleaned the cable good with solvent and sprayed brake clean thru the housing until it was clean. Then I use assembly lube (white grease) and greased the cable up good as I was sliding it back in. seems to be working great, stopped all the minor jumping. I think a good graphite type lube would do wonders also tho.

Any proposed updates, changes, pictures, and/or corrections, please use our comment section below (may need to click on permalink to access comments feature). Information is subject to change and offered as is without any warranties or guarantees. Please review our Term's Of Use for more information.

Q: Speed-o Cable Lube

My speed-o-meter decided to quit on me. I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is. I’m planning on taking it apart this weekend to clean a lube. My question is this, what do you use to lubricate the cable? is there a special lube or do I just use a lot of graphite?

A: I did a clean and service on my cable a few months ago and what I did was pulled the housing and the cable. cleaned the cable good with solvent and sprayed brake clean thru the housing until it was clean. Then I use assembly lube (white grease) and greased the cable up good as I was sliding it back in. seems to be working great, stopped all the minor jumping. I think a good graphite type lube would do wonders also tho.

Any proposed updates, changes, pictures, and/or corrections, please use our comment section below (may need to click on permalink to access comments feature). Information is subject to change and offered as is without any warranties or guarantees. Please review our Term's Of Use for more information.

Q: Speedometer Off

This wonderful hunk of junk from said he had a gto rear end put in, and this is what causes a 10 MPH speedometer offset (due to different gear sizing for the speedo linkup) is there a way to correct this problem easily (if indeed this is the case)?

A: The reason your speedometer is off by 10 MPH is that when the rear end was swapped out, a new one with a different gear ratio was put in it’s place. The gears that drive the speedometer are loacted in the transmission. To correct this problem, you just need to install the speedometer gear for the differential ratio you currently have in your car. Claasic Industries sells these gears and they are easy to replace. Just tell them the type of trans you have and the gear ration in the rear end.

Any proposed updates, changes, pictures, and/or corrections, please use our comment section below (may need to click on permalink to access comments feature). Information is subject to change and offered as is without any warranties or guarantees. Please review our Term's Of Use for more information.

Q: Speedometer Off – Revisited

I have a 1968 Bird and the speedometer is off 6 miles an hour fast. I have 14′ rims and 215/70/14 tires. I’m missing something here. Could someone tell me why its off? I have the 160 speed-o. Is that whats off, or is it something else?

A: I suspect the speedometer gear drive in the transmission is not correct for the current combo (tire size). Just because your running 14″ tires doesn’t mean that they are the original profile. You can try to fix it yourself by changing the drive gear or there should be a shop in your area that can do it for you and certify the speedo. Another option would be to go with reproduced originals instead of correcting the speedo.

A: Same problem here but fixed with a different colored drive gear in the trans, I cant remember which color slowed my speedo but they are bout eight bucks apeice and can be found at most gm dealers. It is the little plastic gear that is on the end of the speedo cable that conects to the trans.

A: Unless your trying to keep the car 100% original, it makes more since to get the tires you want and then correct the speedo. If you want to go to a comparable tire size as original, then check out: http://www.wrljet.com/tires.html

A: I agree with whoever said to pick the tires you like, then calibrate the speedo. But if you want original size tires here’s some advice.

Originals would have been E7014 or F7014, probably F7014. Here are some sizes that are similar:

A: If you have 215/70/14 tires, they should be pretty close to your originals and shouldn’t make you off by more than 1% or so. I would guess then that your speedo is off by 3.23/3.08 or 5% making it read about 74 when you’re driving 70. I’m going to include here an answer I posted on the classical pontiac site for a guy that swapped to 3.73 gears in case it helps.

I just did this for a 2.56 to 3.23 swap in a TH350. There are three ways to do this.

For the first one, find out exactly how far off it is… try using the odometer to check how many miles you read when traveling 10 miles according to mile markers. You should get a ratio like 2.25:1 (based on your 90 MPH at 40 MPH guess). Next, pull the speedo gear and housing out of the trans. Count the number of teeth on the gear (driven gear). Also, count the number of teeth on the gear it mates to on the output shaft of the trans (drive gear). Take the number of teeth on the driven gear and divide by the number on the drive gear. Lets say you get 35/19=1.84, now multiply by how far off your speedo is (like 2.25) and you get 4.14 (in this example). This is what the final driven gear to drive gear ratio needs to be. You may also need to change the driven gear housing since they only house ranges of gears like 36-39, 40-43, etc.

The second way to do this is to use one of these formulas:

Drive Gear = (.0495835 * Tire Dia * Driven Gear) / Gear Ratio.

OR

Driven Gear = (20.168 * Gear Ratio * Drive Gear) / Tire Dia.

And here’s a third way, call GM part supplier. They’ll want to know Gear Ratio, Tire Size, type of Trans and then he can give you GM part numbers for the gears and housing.

Any proposed updates, changes, pictures, and/or corrections, please use our comment section below (may need to click on permalink to access comments feature). Information is subject to change and offered as is without any warranties or guarantees. Please review our Term's Of Use for more information.

Q: Speedometer Off Error Calculation

Basically, if I got from the stock 225/70-15 to a 245/50-16 wheel/tire combo, will my speedo read faster or slower than I am actually going? Someone said there is like a 7% difference in the wheel/tire combo.

A: The 225 is the treadwidth in mm, the 70 is the aspect ratio (% sidwall of treadwidth), and the 15 is the rim diameter. With this, the overall assembly diameter and circumference is:

225/70-15 27.4″ diameter and therefor 172.16″ circ.
245/50-16 25.6″ diameter and therefor 161.14″ circ.

At 70 MPH with the stock assembly, the rear axle will spin approx 429.45 rpm.

At this same rpm (and same speed on the speedometer), the second setup will actually be going only 65.5 mph while the speedo will indicate 70mph, an error of about 6.8%.

A quicker way to determin the error is to simply ratio the assembly diameters:

1 – (25.6/27.4) = 0.0656 or about 6.6%.

Any proposed updates, changes, pictures, and/or corrections, please use our comment section below (may need to click on permalink to access comments feature). Information is subject to change and offered as is without any warranties or guarantees. Please review our Term's Of Use for more information.