It is a legal requirement that any vehicle of over 100cc engine capacity, first registered after September 1937 must be fitted with a speedometer.

My old girl was registered on 1st of January 1938 and so she must have one fitted and of course there had to be one fitted as standard equipment when she was first used, it was an 80 mph Smiths/Jaeger type chronometric instrument.

Most UK vehicles at this time used speedometers built by Smiths, who had taken over the French company, Jaeger, and were using their designs.

The instruments were marked on their faces as being of Smiths/Jaeger mamnufacture up until about 1939 and that was also when they changed the drive input design to the modern squared end on the drive cable.

Among the stuff with my bike there were two speedo heads, one a Jaeger type and the other a later Smiths but both needing attention.

I knew the Smiths head worked as I had used it previously but it did need refurbished, and the servicing of these chronometric type instruments is not for the home mechanic!.

So it was onto the ‘net and into the magazines to find someone who did this type of work and I decided to try “Chronometric Instrument Services” in Nottingham. I contacted them by e-mail and received a reply within two hours.

I then ‘phoned them, we discussed the job and he made what struck me as a very fair offer for a full restoration of the Jaeger, especially as it was a firm price, sight unseen of the job with just my description of it, which I was as accurate with as I could be as a layman.

So I packed it up and sent it down on Monday March 4th. I received a ‘phone call on Friday 22nd March to say that it was ready.

It arrived in todays post, Tuesday 25th March, and it was difficult to believe it was the same instrument, it was better than new!, Good enough to put on show on the mantelpiece rather than putting it on the bike.

This is the speedo head as it was sent down to Chronometric Instruments Services, looking rather sorry for itself, and No!, I did not fit that needle to it.

and this is how it came back, doesn’t look like it’s the same instrument does it ?. The drive goes onto that stub shaft off to one side on the back, the speedo cable has a cup on the end that it fits into and there is a set screw locks them together.

The only other instrument on the bike is the ammeter.

These used to be a standard fitting on both cars and bikes so you could keep an eye on your battery charging. All they really showed was whether the battery was being charged by the dynamo or the battery was discharging to feed the lights.

The Panther uses a Miller electrical system so the ammeter should be a Miller instrument.

Fortunately the correct one is fitted in the headlamp, a 2 inch diameter white-face unit.

It’s the pukka pre-war unit as well. Most of the post-war instruments were smaller diameter and the text on the face was different, only thing was “Does it work?” so I tried it with an old AA dry battery and it swung over both ways according to how I connected the battery so it looks like I’m lucky there.