1980 GS450e new to motorcycles

[tkent02]

One casualty is that the speedometer cable has a little buzzing noise at speed so that's going to have to be redone.

Try lubing the cable, and if that doesn't fix it lube the speedo by turning it upside down and shooting some spray grease between the threaded part that the outer cable screws onto, and the part inside it that spins with the cable. I use spray Lithium Grease but probably anything would do.

One or both of those will usually fix a buzzing or jumpy speedo or tach.

[dorkburger]

(The scooter is serving well as the transport vehicle to pick up parts)

20150718_002134.jpg Scooters are fun!

[villac]

Try lubing the cable, and if that doesn't fix it lube the speedo by turning it upside down and shooting some spray grease between the threaded part that the outer cable screws onto, and the part inside it that spins with the cable. I use spray Lithium Grease but probably anything would do.

One or both of those will usually fix a buzzing or jumpy speedo or tach.

Yes, thank you, that did it!

We had already messed around with the wheel-end of the speedo cable: making sure nothing had fallen out, that the angle entered the hub correctly, etc. and all seemed OK. In fact, a trip around the block with the cable disconnected gave no noise, so it helped pin the blame on the speedo (not something scraping between brake pad and disc.)

I found a ton of threads with a "speedometer noise" search here, so I followed advice and detached the cable from the back of the speedo (it seems the 1980 GS has a detachable cable, but no lubrication port: sounds better than the years that don't have the detachable cable). We found so many recommendations for lubricant, including the spray lithium grease you use: 3 in 1, axle grease, motor oil, silicone. We also had triflo my son uses for RC cars, but in the end I settled on a can of WD-40 for the advantage of that little straw and the aerosol propellant. We were able to spray down the cable housing while spinning the wheel, and then spray up against gravity into the back of the speedometer itself. Of note, the oil lifted a brown residue out of both ends - probably a little coating of time and travel. With the cable reconnected, speedometer worked without noise at speed.

The exposed tip of the cable had an odd look: it was dark brown, was a square cross-section, seemed to have a texture of hard plastic, and had fine grooves in it like serrations or tooling. I figure all of this could be due to being 35 years old and somehow rubbing without proper lubrication, but since it works, I don't care how it looks! If the noise recurs or the cable breaks, we will deal with hunting down a replacement on ebay, etc.

I'm glad I found a good explanation and info here.

@dorkburger, that scooter looks like the classic Italian style our scooter is imitating!

I'm going to copy this into the most recent speedo noise thread too so it's in a proper place. Thanks again!

Chris

[OleDirtyDoc]

Sweet bike.I've had two of them and loved them.there is a vast amount of knowledge and talent here