Found this write up. complements of glutamodo.



1.Front:



2. Rear - note the date stamp - 10/63. That would have originally been from Model Year 1964. I'm not sure what I did with the housing for the three warning lights at the bottom. It should be on there.



3. I used the chisel bit on my Victorinox "Swisstool" to pry the cover off. I'd had this one apart before to change the miles and put on new gels. So it came off pretty quickly for me this time.




4. I removed the two screws on the back, then I had to twist some on the inner assemby to get the metal sleeve for the high beam lights to disengage. Also, there was a rubber gasket that fell out, that was in between the cover and the housing.



5. Here's the view of it on the insides" - note the sun-blasted "gels" (which saw many years of use since I put them in, those were made from Pendeflex folder tabs) and the metal sleeve for the high beam lights:



6. Before you remove the needle, you need to have some kind of baseline to have when you reassemble it. Putting a cable on the speedometer and running it (reverse) in a drill that you know will have the same speed later on, and observing the speed is one way to get such a baseline. The other is to move the needle over then stop peg, set the speedometer up so that it's upright, and take a photo like this of the amount of spring pretension it has. The danger in doing this, is that the needles are often brittle and can break off when moving them over the stop peg.



7. If all you want to do is unstick a sticking needle, you might just be able to do as mentioned, and try to spray some brake-kleen at the uppper bushing, which is identified here:



8. Here's the needle removed, I just pulled straight up on the black center piece to pop it off. You can see the needle is two pieces here, the white needle snaps into a D-shaped hole on the black center piece, which has splines. The brass needle mount bushing, of course, is also splined:



9. Resetting the Odometer. You have to pull the shaft that the odometer connecting gears ride on. If you are lucky like I was, you can pull it back just a little bit and not have all the gears fall off and scatter. Here's an overview photo:



10. I pulled the shaft back just enough to get them loose. I could not adjust the very last number but that was OK. The other ones, I just twirled around with my finger (they freewheel with those gears disengaged) til they read zero. Then I lined the gears up all the same way, which you have to do or it wont go back together again:



11. Once I got the gears lined up, I used my pliers to pop the shaft back into place.




12. Here's the final result - 00004 miles:



13. To dig in deeper: Next up is to get the faceplate off, you'll have to first remove that brass needle mount bushing. The brass needle mount bushing thing, is a press fit onto the drive shaft - so taking if off and remounting it might result in the splines being off from before, and not allowing the same calibration as previously. Keep that in mind before removing it.

To get it off - I first tried pulling on it with some pliers, but it didn't budge and I didn't want to dig into it hard with the pliers. So I got a smaller set of diagonal pliers, and put them under it, and used them to pry up on it, and it popped off.



14. Here's a closeup of the press-fit side of the speedometer needle mount bushing:



15. Here's a picture of the tension spring. I don't think I'd want to mess with that stake that holds the spring down.



16. To separte the rest of this speedometer, there are some "twist tabs" that hold it together. You'll be doing the outer two next. You can see one of these in this next picture:



16a. Here's a picture of one of these twist-tabs being straightened and pushed through:



17. Once you have those tabs pushed though, you can separate the two parts of the speedometer inner assembly. The base of the speedometer needle is a large steel "cup" that fits over a magnet that is on the end of the input shaft that the speedometer cable attaches to. As the magnet spings, magnetic induction moves the "cup" and thus, the needle. The amount of pretension on the needle determines the calibration.

Anyway, you'll be taking the cup part off from over the magnet here. You'll be able to see the inner bushing that the cup/needle assembly rotates on. I do not believe this is lubricated, if anything I would polish it with a clean cloth to maybe some micro-fine steel wool.



18. Here's another picture of the two halves, separated, plus pointing out the next item you'll have to remove, the piece that the bushing for the speedo cup/needle pin fits into:



19. Next up, taking the input shaft/magnet out. There's a couple of things you'll have to do. Straightening these tabs is one of them:



20. After the tabs are straight, you might have to use a screwdriver to help get that piece loose.



21-24. I found that the plastic worm drive for the odometer would prevent removal of the input shaft/magnet. So I had to loosen it. To do that, I had to take off the brass bushing at one end. I used some needle nose pliers that had a "circle" around the cutter portion, which fit nicely over the brass bushing allowing a tight even grip, then I twisted on it and pulled up to remove:








25. Here's the input shaft/magnet removed. I cleaned the old grease off it. I'd probably polish it with some like #0000 grade steel wool.



26. Here's a picture of the hole that the input shaft rides in, along with the original grease. Not sure what kind of grease that is, but as mentioned previously, some white lithium might do it, or I might try a light coat of moly wheel bearing grease.



27/27a. Okay, last and least, my attempts at an "exploded view" of this assembly. One with captions, one without. These are large photos, you'll get a bit of zoom-in on them if you click to enlarge:




Reassembly - I put it back together in reverse order. Went together pretty well. I thought I'd have issues with the pin in the middle of the "cup" not wanting to line up with its bushing, but I temporarily put the needle drive bushing back on and used that to rock the cup around til it lined up. Went quick.

Is there more to come??

That is great info .. Thanks Ethan!


On the Topic ... I-- like allot of VW owners had a speedo that had worn out and cracked
Blinker/oil/and alt lights -- I took the chrome ring off cleaned up the glass..
Cut two very small pieces of clear colored plastic and replaced them.
I used Folder Tabs - the ones that identify what are in folders hanging in a cabinet.I had a few from work .. they work great and look practically brand new..
I used Red for blinker and oil .. one piece --and blue for the gen/alt light .. This really looks white/blue when it is on .. which is only for a short time.. anyways.. But just setting there
it looks more than perfect.. I might use a different color next time or two peices -- As for the red it is all good there..

A free fix that is night and day difference!

Thanks Ethan

This=great stuff