'40 S-W odometer disassembly

Hal Beatty

Hal Beatty

Senior Member
I finally got my '40 on the road after 35 years; put a few miles on it and the odometer stuck on 94,999 as it was turning over. I've done some searches and have found several instances of guys fixing these but no one ever says how they got the total odometer apart... I know about the gears, etc. inside, just want to pull it apart to see what's wrong. The "ones" and "tens" wheels turn easily but the rest of them are bound up.

Any ideas?
Thanks!
 

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i was never brave enough to take a spedo apart. there is a Stewart Warner shop here in town and i let them do their magic........
 
On all the S/W speedometers I've reworked, I've found that bits & pieces of the dial & housing paint plus the decals inside the unit get in there and bind up those little star gears. The ones I've dealt with were relatively easy to get apart but not all are the same. Restoring them with new decals (water transfers) is a lot of work. S/W liked to crimp stuff and it makes it a job to disassemble.

A person could try cleaning in an ultrasonic bath with repeated compressed air blasts to try and get the stuff out of there. If a gear is damaged then it would have to come apart.
 
What is it with 999? The odometer out of my '46 did the same, so I sent it out for repair. Got it back, installed, and it worked okay until the "magic" 999 rolled around. I will leave it for the summer, so I have a speedometer. It is costly to send it out for repair, and I have to ask myself, is it worth the trouble, given the odds of 999 kicking in again? Sure would appreciate a tutorial on how to fix these things.
 
My wheels assembly is the same as your photo. I have had it apart several times and I think its the tiny gear teeth on the pot metal digit wheels that is the root of the problem. This is especially true when one wheel has to turn several others down the line. I was looking for replacement wheels but ended up just recording the mileage and zeroing out the first 2 wheels. Should last my lifetime before it happens again.
 
When the 9 comes up on any wheel, it has to turn the next wheel in line to advance the unit. It works through the little star gear inside each number wheel. If the next number wheel is stuck in any part of the assembly, that's the wheel that will stop it. The highest number nine in the assembly will tell you which wheel is stuck. It will always be the one that comes after it. If it's stuck on 999.9 then the 1000 wheel is stuck.
 
I've taken them apart. Wiggle a razor blade in between the gear and ring with the hook on the end, work your way up to a flat screwdriver, it's just a light press fit. Once that's off, the gear should slide off, you might need the razor blade again. After that the numeral wheels will slide off.
 
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