Speedometer woes

So, about 10 miles out of Kingman, AZ, I noticed that the speedometer needle was buried at 0mph. As I was going about 70mph at the time, I found this to be a titch odd. The bike was still running perfectly, though, and the lights/blinkers still worked (I checked), so I waited til Kingman and pulled into a Chevron station to take a peek. I discovered there that the odometer/tripmeter were also not working, but there wasn’t any noticeable shorts or problems with the speed sensor wiring.

I continued my ride home; still no speedo, still no odometer or tripmeter.

This afternoon, I checked the obvious first: I disconnected the wiring up under the airbox where it connects to the main wiring harness and sprayed some electrical cleaner around. Ditto for the connection from the main harness to the instrument cluster. Still no speedometer.

So I put the bike up on the front stand and took off the front wheel. I pulled the speedometer rotor off of the axle, well, it was pretty apparent where the problem was.

How all four tangs busted off the speedometer rotor is a mystery to me. Whether it was put on incorrectly the last time the front wheel was off, or whether it just aged slowly and finally got to the breaking point, I don’t know. It’s a cheap enough part that I don’t really mind, but it’s a little unsolved mystery.

At any rate, the part’s on order and we’ll have accurate speed representation again soon (well, as accurate as Suzuki speedometers ever get, really).