Let's start with the victim. An early model 1991 W250, three speed auto, with *cough* low miles. As of 2007, the odometer has not worked in four years, but you don't need that anyway. I'll show you how to bypass it later in this article. Here she is. Painted by myself, this is the first attempt at painting and sets a starting point.



For a couple of years, my speedometer did not work at all. I finally replaced the speed sensor that is located on the tail shaft closest to the rear drive shaft of the truck. That made the speedometer move, but it was very radical. In neutral, you could rev the engine up and the speedo would go every where, all the way to 80mph at times and I'm sitting still. So, I ran a new ground wire to the sensor on the tail shaft. That calmed her down quite a bit. After that, she only flinched a few times here and there. Usually moving from my current speed to plus 2mph and back again. She became rather predicable. I decided I would run a new wire from the speedometer to the sensor, bypassing wire harnesses and cruise control along the way. 20g wire looked too small, so I ran 18g. It almost worked. I had to swap that out for a new 20g wire.

After that, I had a stable needle that was consistent. As in, consistently fast. My speedometer needed a new gear installed to recalibrate it with my axle ratio and tire size. Every where I drove, my speedometer said I was going faster than I really was. My GPS gave me the numbers below.

actual speed/speedometer speed
15/15
25/27.5
35/37.8
45/49
55/61.5
65/72
75/82.5
85/92.5

So, as you can see above, for me to 65mph on the interstate, my speedometer was reading 72mph. I really needed to recalibrate my speedometer, but I'm
a cheap penny pincher. What I need to do is just move the numbers around on the speedometer to make them accurate with my current setup. So, I took a photo of my current speedometer and loaded it on to the PC to start editing.




I have resized the pictures for internet use, this is not the working size of the photograph that I used.
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Step 2

Open that photo up in your photo editing program *photoshop* and make sure you have a couple of beers on hand.



Add a new layer on the photo and start editing the speedometer.You'll have to add new numbers and hash marks to calibrate your speed to the GPS.



Once you have that done, insert a new layer above the original photo, and draw a solid black circle over the speedometer.



Remove the original picture (background), and check the size of your photo against the scale to make sure it measures the correct width. Because that is the size you will be printing this at.



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Step 3
Print and cut out your new speedometer face plate. Line it up carefully with the old hash marks to ensure accuracy. This is again my first attempt and it showed. I used Transparent tape to hold the picture in place. (Picture is printed on regular paper, nothing fancy or special...just the cheap stuff).



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Step 4
Install the dash components.



There, that was easy. I wrote it up in four easy steps, just to keep it simple. And once it was all installed, you don't notice the tape and paper. It really all blends in. And now, you can see how I bypassed the odometer all together.

This is still my first attempt. It will look pretty later.

Any questions?

If you have had speedometer issues and have fixed them, please post your problem, and how you fixed your issue.

 

Man's ability to overcome a problem in so many ways amazes me.......that's a compliment. It may not be the way I would've done it but...... this to me is thinking WAY OUTSIDE THE BOX! Kudos.........

 

Dude, I am proud of you.

 

If more Americans would think like that, it would be a better America!

 

Thanks guys, six months and it's still working, lol!