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EFV-8 Club Forum / General Ford Discussion / Broken 1936 speedometer

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Posted By Discussion Topic: Broken 1936 speedometer -- page: 1 2 3     Kens 36 04-21-2011 @ 12:51 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 340 Joined: Oct 2009 Grant, I was hoping Don Rogers would chime in here because he would have definitive answers. If I read the Early Ford V-8 35-36 book correctly, the differences between speedometers have not exactly been correctly described in some of the posts above. According to the book, which anyone working on a 35 or 36 Ford should have, Standard cars had the three-digit odometer while Deluxe models had the four-digit. Also, if I understand the book correctly, early 36 speedometer dials were silver-faced while late models (after May 1936) were shades of brown. If you don't have the 35-36 book, I would strongly suggest you purchase one, available on this site. Ken drkbp 04-21-2011 @ 6:35 AM reply profile send p.m. New Member Posts: 180 Joined: Aug 2010 Grant, Good point. Mine has the 3 digit trip, 99.9 then it zeros. The '35 oil/gas has the hydrostatic gas gage so the only one that may be the same is the temp/amp gage. Does the '36 temp gage have any numbers on its face? Mine just has just the word "normal" between two marks, no numbers. It's a combo with the amp gage which has "30" on both sides of the center mark. Sounds like you know what you are looking for. Ken in Texas Grant 04-20-2011 @ 10:30 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 535 Joined: Oct 2009 37RAGTOPMAN Whether the car gets a repaired, totally restored or NOS speedometer remains to be seen. We will proceed as per your advice with respect to lubrication. How we make out will be reported, but maybe not for a little while. It is going to take a bit of time before the vehicle is up and running this year. Grant 04-20-2011 @ 10:05 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 535 Joined: Oct 2009 More great input. Thank you. Supereal I totally agree with your decision to go with a correct NOS speedometer, and later on an NOS clock to match. The quality will always be there and likely you will never regret how nice that convertible's dashboard looks. Alan Excellent point. The possibility of fading had not occurred to me. Maybe a good-working but unrestored speedo, with a nice slightly faded appearance would be preferable to restored or NOS. Ken Dale's '36 is a roadster, so we are looking for "browns". This is definitely not a show car. Nonetheless it's proven itself to be a pretty reliable highway driver. Probably the '35-type speedometer would not be a good idea, because the trip odometer would have only three numerals instead of the '36 which, I think, has four (i.e. up to 999.9 rather than 99.9).........does anyone disagree with that ? drkbp 04-20-2011 @ 10:21 AM reply profile send p.m. New Member Posts: 180 Joined: Aug 2010 Grant, The color is determined by what you have for '35 and '36, Deluxe or standard. The open cars are all Deluxe and will have the "brown" shade speedometer. For instance, 710's and 760's have different dash but use the same "brown" speedometer as they are both deluxe. The '35 and '36 dash boards are the same for the respective body styles. If your car is a standard, I would use the "silver" tint instruments. That being said, I would look for the same color that is in the car you have. If you have browns for the gas/oil and temp/amp gages, I would look for a brown speedometer even if the car is a standard. Why start over unless you are going for show? If you have a radio, it is brown and you will be looking for browns. Others are correct however, fading is a problem but I see it mostly on the needle and numbers on the odometer and trip meter on the examples I have. The brown and silver seem to hold up good. Ken in Texas ford38v8 04-19-2011 @ 6:57 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 2739 Joined: Oct 2009 Grant, Yes, there is a difference between an open car and a closed car speedo, but not a difference in design, rather, a difference in color. A closed car will have had its dashboard in shade virtually all its life, while an open cars instruments will have faded dramatically in comparison. When shopping for a replacement gage, keep this in mind. Alan supereal 04-19-2011 @ 6:03 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 6819 Joined: Oct 2009 I sent the speedo to Bob's for evaluation.. I knew it was in very bad shape, and the cost to rebuild and reface it was quoted as five hundred dollars. I was also given the option to buy a NOS speedo for $940. That is a lot of money, but I needed it immediately. It is a beautiful instrument, well worth the cost which is a fraction of the total spent on the car, a '47 convertible, given that the speedo is the focus of the dash. It did make my clock look terrible, by comparison, and I later found a NOS clock. No one said that a thorough restoration would be cheap, and it wasn't. No one is sorry they bought the best of something, in my opinion. Grant 04-19-2011 @ 12:01 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 535 Joined: Oct 2009 Thanks to everyone for their comments and recommendations. As always I very much appreciate the advice from fellow EFV8 members. Looking back through this month's Forum topics, I see that on April 5th pretty much the same subject came up under the title "Jumpy 36 Speedo". Apparently we aren't the only ones with 1936 speedometer problems. I suspect that our malfunction was related to a dry cable. In the Jumpy 36 Speedo thread, Supereal commented that he had acquired a very pricey NOS speedometer for his '47. If the unit in our car cannot be repaired, should we be looking for an NOS unit ? Does anyone know what a fair price would be for an NOS 1936 speedometer ? Is there a difference between the open car and closed car speedometers in the 1936 Fords ? 1932BB 04-18-2011 @ 1:25 PM reply profile send p.m. New Member Posts: 104 Joined: Oct 2009 Another vote for Bob's Speedometer. He will work with you. His service also repairs other automotive widgets. joe b 04-18-2011 @ 12:32 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 389 Joined: Oct 2010 I have also used Bob's Speedometer with good results. Their policy is, send them the speedo. Before they do any work they will give you an estimate. If you don't want them to do the work they will send it back to you. They also will answer questions on the phone. Highly recommend.

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