Smiths Speedometer & Instrument Parts
A dead speedometer on a British classic is more often the drive than the head: a gearbox with the wrong ratio in it, a worn inner cable, or a square drive rounded off at one end. Smiths supplied the instruments that nearly every post-war British machine left the factory with, and the parts that put them right are still identified by Smiths numbering rather than by the motorcycle they came off.
We list Smiths and Smiths-pattern instruments, drive gearboxes and cable components, genuine stock where it survives and replica where it does not.
Chronometric or magnetic?
Two quite different instruments wear the same badge. Chronometric heads work by clockwork and step the needle round in small movements; magnetic heads sweep smoothly. Internals, drive requirements and glasses are not shared between them, so establish which one your machine carries before ordering anything. The other half of the job is the ratio. A speedometer only reads correctly when the gearbox driving it turns the head at the rate that instrument expects, so the ratio stamped on the drive gearbox has to suit both the head and the drive it is taking its reading from. Our listings quote those ratios in full.
What we hold
- Instruments — speedometers in km/h and mph, tachometers
- Drive gearboxes — several ratios, genuine and replica
- Drive cables — inner and outer assemblies for speedometer and tachometer
- Glasses and trim — lenses, bezels, rubbers and mounting hardware
Read the numbers off the head
Smiths put a reference on the dial face or the body, and that tells us more than the make of the motorcycle does. Send it over with a photograph of the drive end and we will say which of our parts suits it.