Well!!! I think , repeat THINK, I can put this post to bed now.
A while back I was offered a speedo cluster from a chap who lives only about 4 miles away ( as the seagull flies) but in actual fact is the far side of Falmouth Bay from where I am so actually almost an hours drive away. I had procured some parts from him before, off an Audi Coupe B3 he was breaking ( having been unable to find a buyer for the complete car )
I cut a small rear wing section out of his to enable a repair on my car and at the time he had offered me a speedo he had in amongst a lot of other spares he had accumulated over a 10 year period. I thought back then I could sort my cars problem with fitting the cogged drive wheel but as has already been explained I screwed up removing the speedo needle and ended up with nowt,
So for a mere £20 I bought his very high mileage ( 224K ) speedo having been assured it all worked ok when removed from the donor car some years earlier.
Full of hope, about a few months back I fitted it and drove off on the test run......speedo was flicking around like mad and the trip meter was reading a bit then stopping and all in all not good. So I went back to my old speedo and put the bargain £20 to one side. Later however, with a dial in front of me with no needle on it decided that maybe a flicking needle was better than nothing at all so once again out came the original unit and in went the 20 pounder.
Subsequently on the occasional drives I did in the car it seemed that the needle was flicking around at almost the correct speeds and just occasionally the odometer would read a couple of miles. I fixed in my Garmin GPS and realised that the top of the flick was the correct speed momentarily and the flicks were only incorrect by possibly 3-4mph at the lower end of a flick. So that encouraged me to keep the unit and then I did a longish journey ( for me anyway , about 20 miles ) and on that journey the needle had steadied down almost completely , and the odometer had clicked up a decent amount of miles too.... On the return journey , the odometer read correctly and the needle was as good as you could hope for.
In conclusion I can only assume that the prolonged storage of the unit had seized the workings up and with keeping the car dry and warm and using it only gently now and then, the whole thing had freed itself off .
The cars correct mileage was about 180 K , and so it has now jumped to the 224K figure, but I'll live with that as it really is so good to have a correct working dash....only slight issue is the lights seem a bit dull at night so may have to consider changing all the bulbs or maybe the rheostat just needs a good clean.
So just to say thanks to all who offered help and advice over the past few months , all much appreciated.
