600 Speedo drive fix for tightwads!

[rogerm]

Hi All,
Posted here a little while ago regarding my busted speedo. Read up on most threads about the poor quality of our TA ones and certain ways of determining what was wrong: cable, drive cog, whole unit etc.
After cleaning the worm out of the drive unit, buying the plastic cog (twice as one broke very quickly) at £20 a unit inc vat from Honda. Last week the thing went again - meaning this time it was going to be the whole unit from David Silver spares at about £80.

Not being one to admit defeat I checked ebay for one - nothing doing as I guess they have all been snapped up by people like me! So I checked to see what would happen if I just entered 'Honda Speedo Drive' (generic eh). I got to see many from other models that looked very similar to mine. I plumped for one from a Honda MTX 125/200 - didn't show what year though. I put the thing on today and it fitted and works fine. It cost me 99p!!!

Having had a good look at it I could see that on this version the plastic inner cog had metal attachments that came into contact with the wheel drive (or was fuly metal - don't know because I didn't want to chance taking the thing apart as it looked well greased up and was running nicely). So my conclusion is that when even a little dirt or shredded old plastic comes into contact with the worm it slows or stops the spinning, but the road wheel wants to turn it - the only thing left to give is the £20 nylon cog that just gets shredded. It remains to be seen, but perhaps the more soild cogged unit that I have replaced it with can take a little more crap??? We'll see

Anyhow, looks like this could be a common part, so try your luck. I did the same thing with my starter relay, £8 off a VFR 400 - works fine.

Cheers
Roger

[btbloke]

How's the accuracy of the speedo now, have you ridden and compared to a fellow rider or a car or used a sat nav to check if the gearing in the drive is the same as standard? If the gearing is different it may cause a few headaches or worse still points.
Let us know?

[Immortal P]

cool idea to check if it works. Needed one for my 650 and found out that the ATs use the same. Was still too expensive but a lot cheaper than new. And cheaper than the Honda spare part prices.

but if anyone needs a 600 speedo. Have one lying around since I changed to the WP fork. Was just to lazy to post all my leftovers yet.

[rogerm]

No, I haven't calibrated it yet with a car - I'll do that before I head out far or past a camera. I can't see that it would be too disimilar as it's just 'the worm' and the plastic cog. Biggest issue would be if the road wheel is a different size.........I'll check the specs on-line!!

Cheers for the thought. I'll post if it's OK or not.

Roger