Replacing the Speedo Gear
February 21, 2018.
How many miles do you have on your truck? If you’re anything like me, you’ll answer this by looking at your odometer, reading a number, and concluding that you have that many miles — 83,078 miles in my case.
Like me, you’re wrong.
Your odometer is lying to you. And so is your speedometer. I covered why that is here — go read it. I’ll wait. Speedometers, Odometers, and Gas Mileage — All Lies!
OK, welcome back. Or not if you’re like me and just skipped over that last link. Let me try to recap:
The reading from your speedometer and odometer are affected by lots of things — like tire size, differential gear ratio, and more. Because of this, car manufacturers make a “best effort” to get the speedometer to be “close” (usually a little bit fast) in a stock configuration. Unfortunately, I’m no longer running a stock truck and the 33" tires and 4.88 differential gears have resulted in my speedometer reading 80 mph when I’m actually doing 69 mph.
All that means that I don’t actually have 83,078 miles on my truck. I’ve actually got about 75,000 miles on it. Not that I’m planning to sell it any time soon ever. But as much as I want to hit the 500,000 mile club, I would rather that my odometer be correct — or at least as close as possible.
To that end, I ordered the largest speedometer gear they make for a 2000 Toyota Tacoma — the 33-tooth model — to replace the 30-tooth model that was installed in the factory.
It arrived, along with a new gasket and clip and I promptly set it aside while @mrs.turbodb and I drove several thousand miles down, through, and back from Death Valley.
It was an epic trip. Don’t miss reading about it here: Death Valley (Jan 2018).
Now, several weeks later, it’s time to install that gear, and hope that my speedometer reads slower than I’m actually going, and my odometer logs fewer miles than I’ve actually gone. You know, so the resale value of the truck is higher.
The first step was to remove the skid plates, since the speedometer gear housing is attached to the transfer case, which is well-protected by the @relentlessfab mid-skid. Six bolts and a floor jack, and I lowered the skid to find about 5 lbs of Montana, Wyoming, and a bit of Utah dirt that had hitched a ride back from The De-Tour (another epic adventure you shouldn’t miss).
The speedometer gear housing is secured to the transfer case with a single 10mm hex bolt, which was easily removed after I disconnected the plug for the sensor.
With the bolt removed, the housing can be pulled out of the transfer case easily (if the o-ring hasn’t degraded) and mine came out…
…well, to see how it came out, keep reading Replacing the Speedo Gear over at adventuretaco.com.
Originally published at adventuretaco.com.
