36 Ford truck on Ranger

Great Imagineering MM

Adapting the original Ford speedo's can get interesting as they ran off a gear housing that was attached to the torque tube and not the trans. Plus every different ratio rear end had a different set of trans drive gears.
Can't wait to see how yours turns out.
Torchie.

MercuryMac said:

Snopro, I went back to my hot shot partsman and had the talk. We found a receiver in another catalogue that looks like it would drive my speedometer head if I made an adapter. So, for another $70 I could have bought some more stuff, added it to the first $70 sender, and maybe made it work. But by then I had gotten a little 'determined' and made my own. Here's pictures of what I've got so far. The housing is off a Massey-Ferguson tractor generator mechanical tach drive, there's some stainless steel plumbing pipe and home made stuff.[

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Awesome! If you can change the gears then you can adjust it right to where you need it!

Hi Torchie, my set-up is a T-5 with an open drive shaft, which didn't make it any easier. You have to have a Chevy speedometer cable off the tailshaft and when you try to hook it to an old Ford speedo head at the other end, it doesn't fit and it doesn't drive the head the right speed. Hence the baby transmission.
Snopro, I didn't use gears in this transmission because they would change the direction of the rotation of the cable so I made sheaves for a tiny belt to drive.
Today was a day of dancing----for every one step forward I went two steps back. The shaft with the smaller pulley on it was made completely twice and it's housing had to be remodeled quite a bit. That little flared pipe shaft housing that I thought was stainless steel turned out to be chromed copper pipe. Tomorrow I will go into town and get a longer belt as that one in the picture is a way too tight and makes the whole gizmo turn too hard. Oh, and I made those sheaves, so to change speeds later if I have to, I will just make different pulleys.
I still haven't gone to get my Plymouth yet because it was -36C this morning again.

Because of much lateral movement [my life didn't go sideways, honest], I got nothing done on the '36 for a couple of days now.
The weather finally warmed up quite a bit, so I gathered up everything I needed to go and get my new coupe. So I headed out south and east on Saturday morning and got back here on Sunday afternoon with a 1934 Plymouth five window coupe partly done project. I washed all of the road, salt spray off and unpacked most of the loose pieces.
Dr Crank, I didn't factor in a couple of extra hours BSing with the seller and looking at his stuff, otherwise the trip went as planned.
I still have no pictures of proof. Tomorrow.

We want pictures!!!! =)

I'm beginning to wonder about this story of finding this coupe.

Dirtyrat said:

We want pictures!!!! =)

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I-R-POPS said:

I'm beginning to wonder about this story of finding this coupe.

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This is no time to be distracted from your primary mission.
(But let's see some pics of the coupe anyway).
Torchie

Well guys, I took some pictures. It's a '34 Plymouth coupe with steel body and fibreglass running boards, fenders, hood, and grille shell. The grille insert is a bit rough so I might get a new one for the coupe and fix up the Plymouth one for my Dodge Brothers truck that got shoved back onto the back burner. The frame is original and boxed from the back to in front of the rear-end and then it's 2x4 rectangle tubing up to the front. It looks like an eight inch Ford rear-end and there's a Mustang 2 front end with coil springs in it. It has four mock artillery wheels, coil over rear suspension with four bar. There's all new floor and the hole in the roof is welded in too. The doors are a little bit rougher than I would have liked but I have a sedan in a shed that has good doors but I will have to chop them to make them fit the coupe.
Here's a picture of my speedo transmission now finished for the umpteenth time and still it turns too hard I think.

Nice coupe Mac.
Keep tinkering on the adapter. You will get it.
Then you can patent it and make a fortune.
Torchie.

speedo adapter

classic instruments sells the adapter you need and jegs sells the gears for whatever gear ratio you have.

Thanks Torchie and Sale1,
Now I have three possible solutions to try; get a new drive belt for the sheaves inside, one that's more flexible; make the little transmission fit into the extension housing of the five speed trans and drive the speedo cable instead of having the cable driving it; start looking through the Classic Instruments catalogue.

GM also used an adapter like that Mac. I have one on my Lincoln with the Turbo 350. I see them on eBay all the time. I don't know what ratios are available, but it might be something you want to look into.

Thank you Bam and Dirtyrat, for leading me to the answer. I have some of those little transmissions from my old Kenworth but they are really worn out and they don't change the speedometer cable speed by much, but that was what I was looking for all along. Thank you.
I clicked on your link and then clicked on 'Buy Now'. She'll be comin' in on the noon stage.

https://www.classicinstruments.com/images/products/SN17-2.jpg this is the adapter you need it uses stock ford gears and they come in gear ratios from 2.73 to 4.56 they are available from ford or jegs or e bay.

http://www.jegs.com/images/mini_100/800/890/890-881002.jpg the gears look like this.

Hi Sale1, that classic adapter might have a planetary gear system in it. I would like to see inside it. Anyhow, I have a Chevy transmission in the pick-up now, and I don't actually know how wrong the speedometer will read. When it was running in the shop up on jackstands it seemed to show pretty small numbers for fifth gear. I bought a little transmission last night off of E-bay. Thank you for your input. I try to make lots of things and some stuff doesn't turn out as dreamed and I get underwhelmed.

saleenme1 said:

https://www.classicinstruments.com/images/products/SN17-2.jpg this is the adapter you need it uses stock ford gears and they come in gear ratios from 2.73 to 4.56 they are available from ford or jegs or e bay.

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saleenme1 said:

http://www.jegs.com/images/mini_100/800/890/890-881002.jpg the gears look like this.

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saleenme1 said:

classic instruments sells the adapter you need and jegs sells the gears for whatever gear ratio you have.

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That's not what MercuryMac needs. The Classic Instruments item you linked to appears to connect to a ford transmission and converts to the standard GM type thread to be able to connect their sender.

MercuryMac, the company you purchased from on eBay also makes custom adapters based on your needs.

Click Here for their website

Thanks Snopro, I have slid that site over into my Antique Hunter folder for the future.

Sorry i though you were using a sord ford trans .most transmissions have changeable gears to compensate for gear ratio changes.if you are using a chevy trans speedo gears are available.