With the front wheel away being built-up I decided it was time to sort out the speedometer drive.

This is taken from a big gear-wheel mounted on the brake-side front wheel bearing housing with a right-angle drive gearbox, similar to those used for a rev-counter drive.

First thing was the big gear, spec. for the Panther is a 44-tooth gear on the wheel mated to a 14-tooth gear on the drive box so I had a rake around in the “stores”.

First thing was the drive-box gear and I found that I had a pristine 14-tooth gear in stock, ideal!.

Then I found 4 of the big gears. While one was damaged beyond use the other three were more than usable, BUT! On doing a tooth count I found that while the damaged gear was a 44-toother, all three of the decent ones had only 43 teeth! Typical!!.

A swift check of the POC spares list showed the correct gear in stock though so that’s something else added to the list.

Then it was have a look at the right-angle drive.

There were three of these in the “stores”.

On inspection two were damaged and one seemed good.

The good one spun easily and there seemed no excess play on the output shaft so that was the problem solved, or was it!.

On a trial assembly it turned out that the drive-box output shaft was spinning anti-clockwise and, of course, the speedo head demands a clockwise input.

I then went to look at the other two ‘boxes and found that while the first box did have a clockwise output, the problem was that the output housing had the threads broken off so there was no way to connect a drive cable to it, not only that but it was very stiff to turn over and there was a lot of play at the output shaft, the output bushing was gone!

A look at the other and things got worse!.

The threaded input housing that it mounts by (it is screwed into a housing on the front brake plate) was totally stripped. Then just for a bonus on this box, it was seized solid and on closer inspection I determined that the input housing was bent.

So – “What to do?”. I got in touch with the company who had rebuilt the speedo-head and they put me in touch with a real “Name From the Past”, A Gagg and Sons! (I thought they’d closed down years ago!).

Yes they are still trading, but they have cut back to specialise in just Smiths speedos and rev-counters.

I had words with them over the ‘phone and it emerged that the “good” drive was probably from an ex-WD 16H Norton, given the paint finish on the box and the fact that the cover cap for the input shaft was painted red.

While they thought there was one “on the shelf” they offered to rebuild mine and reverse the drive for half the price of a new one, so I of course took up the offer! (Hey Panthers were made in Yorkshire remember, and you know what they say about Tykes, “Short arms and deep pockets!”. Not only that but I’m a Jock!, got a reputation to keep up you know.)

I sent all three boxes down to them in last Thursdays post and received a ‘phone call from them at lunch-time today, the following Tuesday, to say the job was done, and as they had
been able to use some parts from the other boxes it would be £20 cheaper than their quote, Even better! and you can’t ask for a better turn-round time on a repair than that.