this is not sean's mazda, just a similar one.

I guess I've neglected posting on this car for a while. I've been driving it alot while waiting for my Firebird parts. It's a great car. My sis and her hubby raced it a couple times. The speedometer is broken though. It has a digital speedometer, but still uses a cable.

It had been making an occasional strange whirring noise behind the dash, and then the speedo and odo meters quit working. I thought the cable snapped. nope. worse. Sean was driving it when it broke so it's not my fault ;-)

I took the gauge cluster out tonight to disassemble and inspect it... very interesting setup. It has the cable coming in and running the odometer in the old conventional way (the odo is an old style counter), but it also runs a tiny propellor through a hall effects switch. This switch works the digital speedometer. The assembly seized up. At least we don't need a cable... sigh.

I doubt a new speedometer head is available, and if it is, it's probably very expensive. A used one might work for a while. Unfortunately, since this seized, and the cable is fine, the plastic gear(s) inside the transmission probably shattered too. That's probably pretty cheap... but if the drive gear shattered I have to drop the trans (again)... Oh, BTW the shifting problem is sorted. Shifts fine.

So I judge speed off the tachometer.
According to the posted gear ratios, 65mph is just over 3000RPM in 5th gear. That seems about right for this car. 80mph is just under 4K RPM in 5th, not that i'd break the law. It'd also be nice to keep track of the mileage. No odo. I figure there's about 65K on the car now... reads about 062K.