'83 GS550L speedometer replacement

[Guest]

I have been running without a working speedo for some time, as it succumbed to "late-stage howl". For now, I am using a digital bike speedo (which is working fine), but I scored a nice speedo (in fact, an entire cluster) on Ebay.

So, my question: how hard is it to swap out the old speedo and install the new? There are two screws at the back of the speedo housing - is it really as easy as taking the back off and pulling out the old speedo? I have searched a bit and found numerous references to speedos being sealed units. Is that true of them all, or only some GS models?

[spyug]

On all the 5 or 6 bikes i've owned ( Yammies and Zuks) they are sealed. I believe you could swap them but it would be messy. Can't you just swap the whole cluster?

My speedo on the 750 is way off too and I just put on a Cat'sEye bicycle speedo which works fine. Saved a lot of hassle I thought.

Good luck w3ith it.
Spyug

[Kerry]

On all the 5 or 6 bikes i've owned ( Yammies and Zuks) they are sealed. I believe you could swap them but it would be messy. Can't you just swap the whole cluster?

Thanks, Spyug. I could swap the whole cluster, just not sure how well everything else works in the new one. In my cluster, everything is fine except the speedo so my first thought was to change only that (assuming it was easy). If not, swapping the whole cluster is probably the way to go.

[Alan Schlosser]

I bought an entire cluster from an 83 1100L for my 821100L. Only swapped out the speedo. Very easy. Just had to reconnect the wires for the light and side stand switch stuff in the headlight bucket. Took maybe 20 minutes.

[Castle550]

Open 'er up

I bought an entire cluster from an 83 1100L for my 821100L. Only swapped out the speedo. Very easy. Just had to reconnect the wires for the light and side stand switch stuff in the headlight bucket. Took maybe 20 minutes.

Agreed, I've had my instrument cluster in my 85 gs550 open multiple times and have swapped speedos/tachs before. Easy peezy.