Club 80-90 Forums

Thats why I dumped the section of the membrane that connects the dash lights and created a new loom from scratch for dash and heater vent LEDs. Makes it way easier to deal with. My dash lights come on regardless of the day/night scenario too - works great under trees and bridges when you're plunged into darkness. They're just ignition powered rather than off the lighting circuit and I chose more reasonable resistors so the LEDs are not driven as hard. Should last forever like that.

I've done the same with the loom for the lights. But my feed comes from the radio plug, which has a terminal for backlighting that comes via the rheostat. Even though they're LEDs, there's still a degree of brightness control via the rheostat, but once the voltage drops too far they just go out.

I've done something similar in the past by re-seating the speedo needle behind the stop pin then carefully prising it back over that pin (all plastic parts are brittle). I guessimated the amount of spring tension I needed to increase. The result was just about right.

My understanding of the Construction & Use regulations is that a speedo is legal up to a 10% over-estimate: shows 55mph when actually doing 50 but must never show less than the actual speed. I assume manufacturers allow themselves to have over optimistic speedometers.

Oh! The fun we can have on the kitchen table!

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Twffr wrote:I've done something similar in the past by re-seating the speedo needle behind the stop pin then carefully prising it back over that pin (all plastic parts are brittle). I guessimated the amount of spring tension I needed to increase. The result was just about right.

Yes, that's a good point - resetting the needle rest position also has a knock-on effect on the spring tension, so it's an iterative process.

More like irritating

CovKid wrote:More like irritating

Yeah, there is that. Common sense ought to tell me to stop - my speedo is close enough now.

But I just know it'll bug me if I don't try to get it 'spot on'.

Doubt you ever will Chris. After I moved to tall tyres (82s), it reads spot on up to 60 - good enough I'd say.

CJH wrote:

That's me on the right.

what2do wrote:That's Paul on the left................

Steven

My speedo is all over the place since making a new speedo needle as the original broke they do get very brittle . so now I use an app on my phone it' runs of GPS so "cock" on every time ,u can run an app along side the speedo to check its accuracy .

I find that once you get to know the engine you can tell what speed you're doing by the sound of the engine and the gear you're in. Same is true when I drive the Smart car - at least in town. Its a bit harder with speeds over 50mph.

I doubt you'd ever get the speedo really accurate without a more sophisticated reader than the rather crude cable which was inherited from the Beetle. Besides which, if you change wheels/tyres and it'll be out again. Mine is spot on at 30mph - neither under or over and since most speed cameras seem to be in low-speed zones, that'll do me. As long as you can gauge 30mph and 40mph, its fine. You can verify that with satnav to some extent.

Its easy to forget than in good fettle, early VWs owed their reliability to simplicity. Once you start to complicate things, theres more to go wrong. Much as I like modding, the basic stuff I leave as is. Less hassle and keeps my insurer happy. Hence no electric power steering for instance.