Speedo

When I bought Nixon, the rear tire had a substantial groove cut into the side of it, probably from rubbing against the fender when misaligned. I tried to buy a new tire this summer, but all of the suppliers were out, so I have been riding around on it. On my way home from work last Friday, it finally gave out. The tire split in the groove about a 1/4 of the way around the tire. Luckily, it has an inner tube so it did not blow and I was able to get home.....slowly. Oh yes, and the speedometer cable broke that day.

Since I can't ride it until I get a new tire, I decided to go ahead and disassemble the front end and clean it up. I somehow managed to get the frame balanced on a block of wood so I could get the front and rear wheels off. I also took the gauges off. I'm starting with the speedometer. It was kind of rattling around in the housing. It turns out that the two screws on the back that hold it tight to the housing were missing. I found two screws in my dad's box-o-screws that would work. The paint on the gauges is faded and chipped with lots of ugly touch-up paint so I started sanding them to get ready to repaint them. I noticed the metal underneath was bright shiny steel. So, I ended up sanding all of the paint off and polishing the steel. I figure if I don't like it, I can always paint them. I finished the speedometer last night after about 2 hours of sand paper, steel wool and metal polish. Now it is the tachometer's turn to get buffed.