I have the speedometer from my '55 Fairlane out and am refurbishing it. In doing some research I came across a post (maybe on this site -I can't remember) that mentioned the spring clip that goes between the cable and the speedometer head. I thought " geez I don't have that thing"! I also don't have a cable yet because I'm not sure which manual transmission I am going to use so I am not entirely sure of how this spring clip works. I looked in my catalog and sure enough the part exists (B5A-17306-B) for 55-56 Fords. The listing for the speedometer cable covers more than these two years and appear to look like the ones used in trucks as well. The thing is, I have done a lot of work on speedometers, most recently on my '56 Mercury M100 - I have three different speedometers for it - one Mercury and two Ford - and none of them need this clip, not with an after market cable, that is. I have a Lokar speedometer cable hooked up to a T-5. This cable just has a square tang that fits into the speedometer head. The back end of the Fairlane speedometer looks exactly like the 56 Merc/Ford speedometers. In fact I have a spare generic cable that I hook up to the Fairlane speedo with an electric drill so I can calibrate it and it works just fine. Does anybody know when you need this spring clip - is for an automatic transmission? Thanks, Mark.

Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia

Those clips will only work with the original Ford speedo cables for 55+56 passenger cars.The end at the speedo head is bigger diameter to accomodate the clip.I changed the cable on mine to a NORS aftermarket cable due to wear and tear on the old one .I did away with the clip because it would not fit.Speedo works fine.Clip only used for 2 years.

  

Phew, that's kind of what I thought. Thanks, Mark

Mark

1956 Mercury M100
1955 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan
Delta, British Columbia