Sean -

Another failure mode I've had is that the gear slides on the shaft, 
and depending on it's mood, sometimes engages, sometimes not.
Glue will fix this mode.

And still ANOTHER failure mode is that the shaft itself slides in/out 
of the metal housing.  I tried several ways to prevent this, but none 
worked reliably.  I found a junker speedo with a cracked gear 
(actually 2 of them and paid !! $50) and put the good gear into the 
good housing.  This was a poor design as the same hole that the shaft 
goes through the housing is the same hole that keeps the shaft from 
sliding along it's own axis.  If the housing wears a little, there's 
nothing to keep the shaft from moving.

VW made some changes during the early Vanagon years on the speedo 
stuff, one of which was to a more pliable plastic electronics flex 
wires harness.  The later one (on mine at least) was blue rather than 
yellow.  As I merged the 2 junkers and my own, I ended up with two 
good instrument clusters.  I also installed the more flexy harness on 
my good cluster.  They made the shaft attach better too.

When checking yards for junk clusters, keep an eye out for the 
different styles of clusters.  Some had clocks, some didn't.  I 
wanted to keep mine.  Many more of the non-clock ones available.
Check housings for broken attach points, very common to be busted 
there.  All in all, if you know what you have, and can live with, you 
can buy what the junkers consider junk and end up with good stuff.  
Hopefully at a much better price than I paid.

- Jeff  '80 Westi

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sean wrote - - - - - -
Well, it started yesterday.  My odometer is getting weird.

Any ideas?  Is this possibly related to the oh-so-common plastic drive gear
cracking problem?  It looks like my time has come.