anyone ever swapped an 85 speedometer for a 125? and other general interior questions i have.

[SonOfaTomP]

recently pulled the 125mph speedo from my parts car. would love to put this in my Civ gran fury. just some things i'd like to know. are 125mph speedometer cables easy to come by? i think RockAuto had em? are they compatible with cruise control? i don't really care if my cruise control gets cut off, i never use it. can i take the speedometer face plate off and stick it to my 85mph cluster. my 125 cluster is quite rusty and dirty plus I'd like to keep my same mileage. i tried pulling the needle off but it seems its not budging. any tips and tricks about this would be helpful- Thanks.

question 2. can shift knobs be replaced in these? for some reason i always felt the earlier shift knobs look so much cooler than the later all black ones, i've tried to twist these off as you'd think they'd just screw off but nope! would i really have to replace the whole shift lever?

One more dumb question: what actually makes the Oil Gauge work? for now it's just sitting in my dash for show and working the rear defroster.
for now my dash just don't look right with the 85 Speedo

 

[Camtron]

You’d have to pull the odometer and roll by hand. You can find videos on how to do it. I don’t know about just switching face plates.
Civilian speedometer cable worked fine when I put in my 125mph speedometer, I didn’t have an issue with it reading correctly until I swapped my rear end and put 3.21 gears into the car. Now I need to change the speedo gear in the trans to get it to read correctly. It’s about 10-15mph over the the actual speed at the moment.
Oil pressure gauge would need to be connected to an oil pressure sending unit on the engine block.

Shift knob I don’t know about. I’ve thought about swapping my entire shift arm out to a GM style one with a gooseneck to bring it up off my leg when I’m in D, 2 or 1.

 

[SonOfaTomP]

You’d have to pull the odometer and roll by hand. You can find videos on how to do it. I don’t know about just switching face plates.
Civilian speedometer cable worked fine when I put in my 125mph speedometer, I didn’t have an issue with it reading correctly until I swapped my rear end and put 3.21 gears into the car. Now I need to change the speedo gear in the trans to get it to read correctly. It’s about 10-15mph over the the actual speed at the moment.
Oil pressure gauge would need to be connected to an oil pressure sending unit on the engine block.

Shift knob I don’t know about. I’ve thought about swapping my entire shift arm out to a GM style one with a gooseneck to bring it up off my leg when I’m in D, 2 or 1.

so when you put a 125 speedo in your Fifth it showed the correct speed initially?

 

[Camtron]

so when you put a 125 speedo in your Fifth it showed the correct speed initially?

Yup

 

[SonOfaTomP]

Amazing. i would've thought it'd show 65 when you're going 45. thanks for letting me know. those plastic little knobs will be a pain i bet. or do they pop out easy and i just broke em being a dummy?

 

[Mikes5thAve]

The speedometer doesn't need any extra work. The cable and gear are the same. You can't just swap the faces the rest of the speedometer that makes the needle move is different.

The gear shifter knob pulls off but might break in the process being 40 year old plastic.

 

[SonOfaTomP]

The speedometer doesn't need any extra work. The cable and gear are the same. You can't just swap the faces the rest of the speedometer that makes the needle move is different.

The gear shifter knob pulls off but might break in the process being 40 year old plastic.

my father's 4bbl Cop Dip has been needing a new speedo cable for a long time. spent so much time thinking these needed two different cables. so it really is plug and play just to be 100% sure? can anything be done to make that shifter knob come off easier or just prying with a screw driver and praying it doesn't crack? i appreciate the info!

 

[Camtron]

100% just plugged in the entire 125mph speedo and fuel gauge assembly into my stock civilian dash and it worked and functioned perfectly.

 

[Camtron]

And full transparency, I pulled my stock odometer apart to roll it back by hand for a test round. It’s pretty easy to get out and apart, theres a little stamped clip that you don’t want to stretch when you’re disassembling but otherwise easy enough to get apart roll and line up the right mileage.
That said, it was a tedious enough task, I still haven’t taken the dash back apart to do it to the 125mph Speedo to have the correct mileage shown, lol

 

[SonOfaTomP]

And full transparency, I pulled my stock odometer apart to roll it back by hand for a test round. It’s pretty easy to get out and apart, theres a little stamped clip that you don’t want to stretch when you’re disassembling but otherwise easy enough to get apart roll and line up the right mileage.
That said, it was a tedious enough task, I still haven’t taken the dash back apart to do it to the 125mph Speedo to have the correct mileage shown, lol

trying to roll back the miles now and these numbers don't wanna budge. the gap isn't too big. my car is at 71k and this one reads 73k. i guess i can wait to put it in and swap it then. i gotta stick something in the cable slot and Ferris Bueller it?

 

[Camtron]

trying to roll back the miles now and these numbers don't wanna budge. the gap isn't too big. my car is at 71k and this one reads 73k. i guess i can wait to put it in and swap it then.

View attachment 52257

Gotta open up the back and pull it. Has a gear lock to keep it from rolling back. That’s why I used the civilian speedo for a test dummy

 

[Camtron]

This was the guide video I used, it’s not specific to our car platform but gives the general mechanics needed to do the roll back.

 

[SonOfaTomP]

i just got a crazy idea. it seems these come out locked in place. why don't i just take the one out of my old speedo yeah i never done this as you can tell

 

[Mikes5thAve]

For sure there is no difference in cables.
I don't know if the odometer are identical or they're geared differently because of the different speedometer speed. There's no turning it back by the cable.

 

[SonOfaTomP]

while i have ya, what would the proper Eagle RSA tires be for these when they were sold to police, getting some cop rims and imma have the local Goodyear put em on with new tires.

Also holy crap that Odometer was a pain in the ass to put back on there. number isn't exact but good enough. i think the little teeth are out of place. but i'll deal with that when i need to

 

[AMC Diplomat]

Well today I learned something

 

[SonOfaTomP]

i put it in the car, holy crap was it a pain in the ass to plug back in. pull out that cable a bit? it gets kinked when trying to push it back in, hardly any hand space. when all was said and done it works, but it makes a clicking noise and between 5-25 mph it kinda just bounces up and down. i bet this means the cable isn't all the way in but no i'm not gonna take this dash apart again until i get really annoyed. above 25 it works fine

 

[SonOfaTomP]

so... in my quest to simply swap out one gauge it would seem i ruined the entire cluster. A+ mechanic here boys. so at first when i put the 125 speedo in it would make a rattling noise and only work above 35mph. so today i went out to attempt to fix it. it seems the speedo cable is pulled out kinda far. i tried tucking it back in but she isn't budging. i put everything back together and now. both my speedo and gas gauge no longer work at all. the lights still work but no speedo, go gas gauge. i checked if the cluster is plugged in. definitely is. also checked the fuse box. everything is good. i got no idea. only thing i can guess is somehow the speedometer cable broke or fell out behind the dash but she looked plugged in. there was one connector under the dash idk what it goes to hanging out. i guess this fiasco tells me i may be the worst mechanic in the Baltimore Metro area. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Camtron]

so... in my quest to simply swap out one gauge it would seem i ruined the entire cluster. A+ mechanic here boys. so at first when i put the 125 speedo in it would make a rattling noise and only work above 35mph. so today i went out to attempt to fix it. it seems the speedo cable is pulled out kinda far. i tried tucking it back in but she isn't budging. i put everything back together and now. both my speedo and gas gauge no longer work at all. the lights still work but no speedo, go gas gauge. i checked if the cluster is plugged in. definitely is. also checked the fuse box. everything is good. i got no idea. only thing i can guess is somehow the speedometer cable broke or fell out behind the dash but she looked plugged in. there was one connector under the dash idk what it goes to hanging out. i guess this fiasco tells me i may be the worst mechanic in the Baltimore Metro area. any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Whoa, did the cable end pulled/break out of the clip? That’s a bummer man.

 

[SonOfaTomP]

Whoa, did the cable end pulled/break out of the clip? That’s a bummer man.

View attachment 52296

seems like it did when i pulled the gauge cluster out. was kinda stuck. think maybe it got pulled out of the transmission on the other end? think is it worked (though poorly) when i initially put the speedo back in so idk whats up now and why both it and the gas gauge are dead. i guess i ought to just have a shop look at

UPDATE: so i snapped the speedo cable when pulling on the cluster. was kinda hard to get my hand behind it to pull the tab off as it'd been on there for over 30 years. stupid mistake and that'll run me 150 bucks for repair. at least i'll have her back this weekend