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Spider In The Speedo

 $500 Spider

The spider, it appears that he's building a web around my speedometer needle. Think of the possibilities:  "I didn't know I was speeding officer…oh, look, there's a spider web in my speedometer." Or this:  "…one hundred miles per hour…No Way. My speedometer only said fifty-five." Well, there's a little hole in the back, and I hooked a tiny hose onto a can of Raid, and gave him a little shot. There's really no way to get the little fucker out of there; I don't think the speedo comes apart. So for now, I'll just wait and see if the Raid will take its toll. And think of more excuses…




So…the spider was living in the speedometer, and I figured, “…live and let live,” that is, until she started building a web to the needle. So a little Raid applied around the holes in the bottom, where the wires go in, and a dose of heat from the heat gun, to spread the fumes, and the spider lay down at a spot between 90 and 95 MPH, on the glass. Didn’t move for 3 days, so I thought she was dead…and then I took a ride, and she came alive. Probably from the vibrations. And then, after the ride, she started building another web to the needle. That could be a problem. So I got my heat gun, and began to slowly heat the glass face of the speedometer, and she was running around in there, but I cooked her, and she shriveled up and died down where it says “Harley Davidson.” She came to rest in between the “e”, and the “y.” Unfortunately, I also cracked the glass. Shit.


So I found out that a new speedo, with my mileage programmed by a genuine technician of The Harley Davidson Motor Factory, was gonna run around five hundred bucks. A cool looking aftermarket speedo, with the mileage programmed in would cost about the same. Stock “take-offs” on E-Bay, could be found for around a hundred…I saw one, with 35,000 miles, for eighty bucks.



I don’t think I want to show a lower mileage, and open up a can of worms…maybe accusations of mileage tampering, so I figured I could just replace the glass. I found I could buy a new glass and bezel kit, from J & P Cycles for cheap, but further research led me to believe that the product is only available for a 4 1/2” speedo:  mine is 3 1/2”. I even found a video, several videos, on how to change the glass and the bezel. But not for a 3 1/2”. Removal of the old bezel would cause kinks, and probably leakage, not to mention that the kinked up bezel would probably look like shit. So I put some tape over the cracked glass face…you can still see how fast you are going, and can still see the odometer, so you know when to change the oil. And I ran a very thin skim of blue silicone around the joint where the bezel and the glass meet…it should work for a while. But if you look real close, you can see the carcass of the Five Hundred Dollar Spider:  right between the E and the Y.


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