My speedo usually stays at 50 sticks even when car is off. Once in awhile it frees up and works for a few minutes before it sticks again. Does it sound like the speedo or the cable? Thanks, Kevin
Sounds like the speedo to me. Either way, speedo or cable, you'll have to do some un-fun work. They can be lubed, but you will have to disconnect your battery, then disconnect the grounds under the dash, near the seeting column, then remove all the screws from the instrument cluster/instrument panel, remove your glove box, then remove the dash pad, remove the panel directly under the steering column, remove the nuts that hold up the coulmn, drop the steering column down to the seat (not remove it) unhook the wiring harness bundle from around the hooks that hold it up close to the inside of the instrument panel, take the climate control level knobs off, reach in behind the speedo and depress the speedo cable release tang, and pull the cable out. Then you can use a tool that will lub the cable. Sounds like a pain to you? Me, too. If it's the speedo, I may have one you could have, but don't count on that, let me check first. It might have a broken lense, but they can be swapped out. Is your Skylark one with slightly concave lenses in the instruments, or the pointy type? If it's the speedo, you must do all that stuff above up to unhooking the speedo cable. then carefully carefully pull the wire looms off each instrument. make up tags that identify each, and what way is up, or which color wire faces left, or something so you can't screw up putting it all together. Disconnect the headlight switch and wiper motor switch and tag them too. Same for the cigar lighter...tag every d@mn thing that you disconnect, beleive me it's well worth the effort and hassle. Once everything is disconnected and the instrument cluster is free, gently pull it out- it has a habit of catching on wires. Now you can remove your speedo and swap it out if that's what you have to do. if you have to go this far to fix it, seriously consider restoring the cluster while it's out. get new woodgrain stickers from Year One or someplace, and get a silver paint pen and some reflective paint from eastwood Company in Pennsylvania- they sell a reflective silver that is 30% as reflective as a mirror, should look like a re-chrome job on the panel, i wish it was available when i did mine. remove all gauges from cluster, remove old woodgrain, and mask the areas not to be painter. Spray the reflective silver and let dry a whole day. use the paint pen for tricky spots like around the holes for the gauges. Not a quick job but beleive me, if you can make the effort to do all that while it'a apart anyway, it will look new for years and years. this is not a job I relish doing again, but I will have to, it's been almost 10 years since I did mine and now much better stuff is available. I would hesistate to bring the car to a garage to have this done. the dash pad in particlular is easy to damage, and unless the shop is familiar with these cars, it's a sure but they might damgage it badly, because it is not obvious how they are held in. My advice is to get in touch with a local Buick guy who knows how to do this and lives near you and have him help. Also, pick up a 1970 Buick Chassis manual, it's worth it's weight in gold. You live a little far North for me to shoot up there and help you out, but if you somehow know somebody around here and could park it for maybe a weekend at his place maybe, and it was a safe place to leave it semi-apart for a day and you had all the stuff you need, we could take care of it, I've done this a few times. I can photocopy the pages from the chassis manual you need and mail them up to you, too, but I can't do that until Monday.
