Thanks to all who replied..problems fixed.

  First I squirted some spray lube (SABesto 2000, Wurth) down the speedo
cable, which helped a little.  Then I got some long needlenose pliers and
took hold of the speedo cable just below the upper end fitting to get it
better aligned with the instrument back, better than I could do with my
fingers in that cramped space.  That allowed me to get it to "click-on"
properly.  I still had an irritating 'whirring' sound, so I again removed
the cable and, using a spare peice of vacuum line on the small 'straw-like'
nozzel of the spray lube, I gave a small shot of lube  up into the bushing
in the rear of the speedo.. Problem solved.
  Don Hanson

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Don Hanson <dhanson928@gmail.com> wrote:

> I recently replaced my speedo with one from Ebay with a working Odo.  84
> van..later model speedo now.  At first (for about 600 miles) it worked
> really great, smooth quiet accurate to 1-2%   even though I couldn't get the
> cable connection at the rear of the housing to "click-on" all the way.  Has
> a white plastic lever (on the cable fitting) that is supposed to click over
> a groove in the speedo and 'anchor' the cable in.. On the old speedo you
> needed to squeeze that lever to release a little hook so you could pull out
> that cable.
>   The new one I installed, no matter how hard I push the cable and it's
> housing onto the instrument, it won't click on...but that didn't seem to be
> important to how the speedo and Odo worked until it got a bit cold (27f)
> recently..It began making the noise in the Subject line of this post and the
> needle of the speedo is now oscillating a little.  I've removed that
> connection and put a little lube on the cable end and tried to re-insert it
> with a little help from some long-handled needle nose pliers...still can't
> get it to click on.  When I had the two speedos on the bench side by
> side...I could detect no difference in the configuration of the female (on
> the speedo itself) half of the connections..
>   So should I just 'push harder'...?  Get a bigger "Pliers"?  Is there more
> than one type of 'push-on' speedo cable or instrument?  Is there a 'trick'
> to getting the connection correct...?
>   Anybody hints?
>   Don Hanson
>