Grease IS THE WORD
The Smiths speedometer drive on the rear axle is often neglected until it goes wrong, which can be too late. I discovered this when the flickering chronometric needle froze at my travelling speed. A broken drive cable wasn’t to blame, thankfully, nor was the speedometer, which left only the drive from the back wheel to look at.
A close look revealed the double-slotted crown in the hub was still engaging with the two drive pegs of the gearbox, but this had stopped turning the forward-facing drive to the speedo cable. Faced with either a pricey secondhand replacement of unknown condition from that popular auction site or a cheap modern copy made somewhere east of Ipswich, I took a punt at
