Hot Rods Electric speedometer with torque tube?

Hey guys,

Did some snooping around and really
Couldn't find what I was looking for.

I would like to know how you would go about using an electric speedometer with a stock ford torque tube. Stock they have a "turtle" bolted to the tube and that houses a gear and etc and the cable exits out of the turtle.

My previous electric speedometers use a Hall effect generator that plugs into the hole in the transmission where the cable would go.

You press a button, drive a mile, press the button and do it once more and it's calibrated and good to go.

Would this type of sending unit ~ I know there are various different ones and methods for electric speedo's~ be bolted into the turtle where the cable once was or?

Every combination of search words I used pulled up stuff about t5 transmissions and all sorts of stuff that wasn't what I was looking for. Though this morning I did stumble across a device that classic instruments makes that they say will work to install on a torque tube for $91.

Anyhow I figure someone had to have a working electric speedo in one of these old fords with out it being a GPS unit

Thanks in advance

 

This is the unit I found

http://shop.classicinstruments.com/sn16

 

For a bunch of reasons, I ended buying a VDO GPS unit from Yogis for my 32, easy install, looked good, had a classic styled face, matched other gages, worked great, thinking you do not want GPS type to keep your car old style traditional, nobody ever noticed where I put receiver, as I tried to keep my car in the 60's look as that is my preference/style, avatar pic, my 32.

 

I personally want to use one because I have some electric speedometer's and different sending units. So it would cost me nothing versus whatever a GPS and gauge set up would run.

I asked more so because I was curious of how to do it because it has to have been done a million times but I'm not finding anything.

 

Does a GPS speedometer stop working in a tunnel? Reminds me of a Steven Wright gig, his friend was an AM disc Jockey, in tunnels you couldn't hear him...

 

Still curious, bump to the top

 

several of the gauge manufacturers sell pulse generators that hook up to the original gear at the trans.

 

IIRC, it seems to me that Ford products from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s used a pulse generator that screwed onto the conventional speedo drive at the transmission. Much like the Classic Instruments unit in your prior post. Unfortunately I am not in place right now to verify that.....but a little internet sleuthing should prove that one way or another. If I am correct, a used Ford unit should be very inexpensive and possibly free.

Ray

 

Yeah suppose if the cable fitting on the torque tube is the same size as a later car an overlap could be found, good thinking.

For some reason the fitting on the torque tube seems quite a bit smaller in my head than what I see on a later trans. I’ll go measure one when I get a chance this afternoon and see where it lands

 

You can have a cable made with different ends on it to connect the two together.

 

I'm thinking that an 'electric speedometer' is the same as a 'GPS speedometer' ie the gauge works from an electrical pulse and it doesn't know what generated that signal. That being the case I'd expect an existing electric gauge would work with a gps unit - but there might be interface issues? I know the sensors are available separately, so maybe it's just a case of checking compatibility? I have one lying around somewhere sold to work with the Socal gauge, but not supplied with it.

Chris

 

Yeah most electric speedometers work with most gps sending units.