Dial Faces

[epipete]

I'm considering going down the metal monkey route and having exported my car to Cyprus have a dilemma.

Although the Standard UK dial configuration is MPH on the outer rim (large) with KPH on the inner rim (small) Cyprus roads and speeds are measured in KPH, logic says that in order to see my speed more easily I should switch the scales around so that KPH is outer with MPH inner.

I can't think why it should matter but making the change shouldn't alter to accuracy of my speedo should it?

Pete

[rip]

Sounds reasonable to me.
I have just fitted a set of Metal Monkeys to my daily & they look great.

The biggest influence you will have on the accuracy of your speedo is where you aim your pointer when you re-attach it.

[dapinky]

Pete,

As Iain says, just get the pointer in the right place when you replace it.

The way i did it was to drive the car at a steady 60mph - speed taken from Satnav, NOT dial face.... note what the speedo says (in my case I can't remember, so lets assume it was 65mph???).

Stop car (obviously!) and remove instrument cluster.... You'll have fun with that bit - it comes out the top of the dash and is fiddly rather than hard to orientate the proper way to pull it out.

Dissmantle the speedo so that you can get to the needle and then the face, but be able to view the rear of the mechanism.... hold needle in the 65mph possition (or whatever your number was showing at an accurate 60mph), make a mark against the rear rotating disc (that the needle attaches to), and an adjacent mark on the body of the speedo (think 'Timing Marks' on the engine).

Now you can remove the needle and the face, replace with new face, and replace needle. Simply rotate the rear disc until your lines match up, then slip the needle on to point at 60mph. (or in your case, for your new guages, 98kph ).

reassemble and drive - you should see that the speedo is now accurate at 60mph when compared to SatNav (you may want to do it again to get it even more accurate if it didn't work well enough the first time, so just try it before you fully reassemble the whole lot).

I did mine about 6 years ago and it is absolutely spot on at 60, and within a couple of mph everywhere between 20 and 120.

Not a hard job, but required some dexterity and patience.

[HJ2]

Accuracy of the instrument itself is not altered, accuracy of the readout in % changes though. But nothing to worry about.

More details of the swap + calibration here:
forum.lotuselancentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=19819

[tweetdriver63]

Metal Monkey also has 170 and 160 mph faces. Changing to the 160 mph set helps the accuracy a lot.

[Ian T]

Metal Monkey also has 170 and 160 mph faces. Changing to the 169 mph set helps the accuracy a lot.

This is amusing really, as the clocks are derived from Vauxhall cars and were available in 140mph cable driven and 160mph electronic pulse driven variants. I suppose the Lotus wheels are smaller in circumference than the old Mk3 Astras and Cavaliers, they have a different gearbox, a different drive ratio to the cable and all sorts.

Being slightly red deficient in my vision, I don't get on all that well with the standard clocks and did for a while consider just finding some Vauxhall clocks, but then I'd need to change the funboy three as well.

Glad Dave didn't suggest fitting the needle while driving along at 60mph...

[HJ2]

You wussy