hey guys, im curious.

what kind of dramas would you run into if you took a speedo from a non-mini, and tried to fit it to a mini.

assuming it's a mechanical speedo, my guess is that the ratio of rotations of the road wheel to the speedo reading would not match. is there anything else?

You would have to get it callibrated.

I've seen MGB guages in a Mini before, looked tops! Cam Brown's 1275 LS.

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easy job to calibrate? i've seen in an AE82 corolla that there is a small screw with spring. is this the deal in most cases? or is calibration really really really really hard to do?

Don't know, never done it before.

I think it's something you gotta go to a guage place to get done?

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There should be some specialist shops in the yellow pages that do this..

Just searched the yellow pages for ya...

M.I.S. (Mobile Instrument Service Pty Ltd)

13/ 11 Bowmans Rd Kings Park NSW 2148
ph: (02) 9621 8190 Instruments--General

Give him a call and see what he says

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[NATHAN] -- Sold everything mini related and am back in big beautiful BMWs

Yep he's just down the road from you. I've used Olympic Instruments in Pymble- they are good.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

thanks guys! kings park is just the next suburb across from me.

I was just thinking that out of the 2 dash clusters i've got, neither of them look like they are going to last for much longer. a dash cluster from a more modern car might be more reliable, if it was able to be suited to the mini.

will get back to you guys on what they say!

Anyone in Melbourne wanting to have gauges calibrated can go to Howard Instruments in Heidelberg, just up the road from Northern Mini Parts. He actually owns about 4 minis. His cars are absolutely unbelievable standard. Won car of the show couple of years ago at MINISHOW. Also has a race car.

His name is Roger.

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mutant mini 1380cc '73 UK imp-Chroma Lusion-leather interior-8 x 300W Diamond Audio Dual Voice Coil 8" subs, Phoenix Gold 4 chnl amp, Pioneer 7550 DVD, 2x Phoenix Gold A1.800d MonoBlock Amp, Focal Utopia splits, 14" chrome rims 195/40/14 tyres

triumph dolomite speedo and tacho look really neat on a wood or black vinyl background - they're about 5 inches, black face, white numbers and needles

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did I tell you that I won a trophy?

hey! i called the instrument fellas stated above (kings park) and they were PLENTY helpful!!

from what i have learnt:
most modern day jap and aussie cars have standard ratio for the speedo/speed sensors i.e. something like 1000 revolutions per kilometre. this means you can easily pull out a speedo from one holden, stick it into another holden and you'll be laughin!

however, most english cars built a car, then built a speedo and sensors to go with it. i.e. the speedo for a mini with an 850 wont be calibrated correctly for a mini with an 1100 in it. check the back of a mini speedo and you will see a little sticker indicating what the speedo has been calibrated to e.g. 820 kms/revs.

bottom line, grabbing a dash from a jap buzzbox and calibrating it to fit will be fiddly, and costly, and a more feasible and practical option would be to go with aftermarket gauges that are made to be calibrated to fit almost any car that they are put into.

reco'ing existing mini gauges to be as new is pretty costly too, and in the end, you still have 30 year old gauges using 30 year old technology.

i hope this enilightens more than just me!

Does anyone know how to stop your speedo from wagling all over the place one I replaced but would like to get going again used to swing some 10km/hr above and below the correct speed which made me a little nervous going past speed traps.
I tried lightly greasing the inner cable but gave up on trying to get at it on the gearbox to check if it was properly done up etc.
Anyway I changed the speedo over and it was greatly reduced so I figure it has to be speedo related, any suggestions
An instrument place quoted approximately $80 to fix it so I bought another 2nd hand one for $30 to find out it didn't work properly either (full of oil that had found it's way up the cable) so I cleaned it out as well as I could but stil it doesn't work properly, but it is good to have a spare

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Roads need more corners
A Deluxe(CG13DE), 2 Clubbies(998 and 1275) and 2 Morris 1100Ss

im going to fit a daihatsu gauge cluster aswell as the whole dash. i will need to ( i think ) get the speedo recalibrated. but the car its out of does run on 12 in rims

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lookin for another clubby

If speedo wiggles, the inner cable has a minor kink in it. Buy a complete new cable like I did..
And make sure it has a bit of grease on the inner, but no closer than 150mm from the speedo head.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

can also be caused by dust and crap on the face and the magnet inside it - used to fix morris minor ones like that

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did I tell you that I won a trophy?

I was looking to do something a little different when I finally get the time and money to do up my car the way I want it, I want to put in a fully electronic dash like out of a VK calais or something.

I used to work around the corner from St George Instrument Services (at least I think that's what they're called) in Carlton (Sydney). I went in there one day and spoke to the bloke for a couple of hours - really helpful. He also tried to steer me towards the aftermarket style gauges (VDO etc) as they are much easier to install / calibrate / service etc etc. I think I was looking at around a grand for the complete set (Speedo, Tacho, Fuel, Oil pressure, Temp and Volts). Compare this with the modifications i would need to do to get a dash unit from another car working and I couldn't see the value. The only other thing he told me to do was to search the net for aftermarket custom crap from the states, as he said there is a huge market for that sort of stuff over there for the hot-rod guys. Haven't gotten around to it yet, but I'll let you guys know if I find anything good.

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Bob Slattery
Duffman Says A Lot of Things - OH YEAH!!