MTFCA Forum

Questions for those who know speedometers.

What kinds of speedometers would have been used on an 18 roadster? (no dash to mount it to).
Is there someone in the club who rebuilds and sells complete setups including cables and gears?

Anyone have photos to share of what some of these would look like installed on a roadster without a dash?

Thanks in ad advance.

If you get a Stewart speedometer and are fussy, the letter (date code) on the face should correspond with the model year of your car.

Stewart made both metal and wooden instrument panel as an alternative to mounting the speedometer on the firewall.

The original owner of my 1917 roadster purchased and installed a metal Stewart instrument panel. My dad has a couple NOS wooden Stewart instrument panels.

You can see examples of metal and wooden Stewart instrument panels here and information from the very knowledgeable Russ Furstnow:

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29 ... 1175008861

Mark,
Since you don't have a dashboard, the most common application was to use a "drop down" bracket that mounted to the cowl, just below the windshield. There were several manufacturers that provided this type of setup (Sears-Cross shown), with Stewart Warner being the most common. Here are a couple of photos of the type you could used. Also, Stewart Warner offered a dashboard for the Ford that mounted the speedometer (see the variety of dashboards in photo). I hope this helps.
Russ Furstnow

Model T Haven has a speedo mount listed on their ebay store right now similar to the one in Russ's post.

Why not just install a firewall mount like a 13-15. You will have many choices. Stewarts are the most common. If you need everything, I would count on spending as much as $1000, but it probably won't be that much.

Wow this is great information guys. I want to try to do this but as mentioned above it may be out of my financial range. We will see.

Russ, I sent some emails to you.

I wanted a speedometer for my 14 but it was a bit out of my range all at once. One day I bought a wheel gear off eBay and I had to finish it then. I just bought a part at a time when they popped up until I had it all. I think I paid $150 for the swivel, that was the most expensive part out of them all. I used a bracket for the head I made from the bottom of a paint can until I finally found a junk speedometer head with a good bracket.