Hello,

My name is Tim and I just bought a 1993 K75 with a speedometer problem. I have researched it for a while and have taken it apart and also swapped out the speed sensor with one the previous owner gave me but it didn't change anything. It works up until about 45 MPH and then just hangs there. I cleaned the connections and shined them up and used contact cleaner on them on both ends but no change. I am now thinking it may just need calibrated or something? I see the Karamba calibration link from this site but don't yet have the required permission level I suppose to get the password to download the program. Not sure it is in English either.

I don't want to swap out the speedometer since everything else is working and the bike only has 21,000 miles on it. Otherwise it runs great even though the guy dropped it at an intersection and snapped off the engine guard and the left foot peg and bracket. But all that has been replaced and there was no other damage that is apparent.

Anybody used the Karamba program to diagnose speedo problems successfully?

Look at the cluster from the side.  The speedo face plate may be warped (from getting really hot in the sun) which is why it only makes it up to 45.

Yea, I looked at that too, they seem to be flat and connected. I was hoping that was the problem but no such luck. I can spin it by hand with no resistance. It seems to be an electrical issue to me based on nothing at all.

I am almost to the point of using a speedometer app for my cell phone, I just need a RAM phone holder. That will allow me to not get a speeding ticket but won't help fix the problem. Although some of those apps are better than anything they put on bikes nowadays. Not sure if they hold up going down the road though. They have the speedo, clock, compass, elevation, temperature, even weather and one click and you can look at the map which will record your route. Free. Oh and you can also answer the phone if you have a bluetooth in your helmet. If you have a small tablet you would have a nice interface. I have not tried it yet.

Seems great but having worked in cell site maintenance for 25 years I don't expect it to be reliable, yet.

Got married just down the road in Sevierville in 2003. We loved "Dolly's Trolleys"!!!. The scenery there is very much like home, only 3,000' further up.

https://www.pigeonforge.com/trolley/ for anyone who's wondering what the hell I'm on about

Spent lots of time in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg. I first moved there in 1981 just before the World's Fair. I was a plumber at the fair in Knoxville. Pigeon Forge used to be local people selling hand made novelties but quickly became a joke. Bill Bryson called it a bathtub ring in his book "A Walk in the Woods". The hills are full of wannabe hillbillies. The charm was lost a couple of generations ago.

We live an hour and a half east where it is just as beautiful without all the tourons. Lots of fun places to ride, not a straight road to be found for miles. Or a flat one.

MrTim wrote:tourons

You've just lost that word. It migrated to Ireland.

I've read "A Walk In The Woods". Bill Bryson deserves some sort of medal for his pokes at authority - accurate, side-splittingly funny and extremely pointed all at the same time. As it happens, I agree with you about Pigeon Forge. It did disappoint me but as I was at school in the US at the time and the choice was between Vegas and Forge (long story), tacky old Vegas wasn't going to get a look in.

Yea, I can see where East TN would be better than Vegas. Pigeon Forge is OK if you are just going shopping on a weekday. We go about once a year. The national park is a treasure even with the tourons. You just have to get out of your cage and walk off the road more than a hundred yards and the people disappear. We used to inner tube the rapids on the Little River there when I was young and 35 degree F water didn't scare me.

But if you go further east there are just as many streams and lakes and mountains, they just don't have Dolly's name attached. Even though Dolly is also a treasure, I am sure she doesn't visit Sevierville very often. But she can helicopter in so maybe?

By the way, I figured out what was wrong with my speedometer thanks to Rick at speedometers.com who suggested I look at the needle and see if it was getting stuck on the lens in front. I didn't think of that since when you take it apart you remove the lens and cover. Sure enough the whole speedometer board is able to bend from the middle and warped toward the lens. I was able to shim the board so it lays flat and it fixed it.

Rick is great, he could have had me send him the speedometer and fixed it and charged me hundreds of dollars but instead he just had me look at something simple. I would not hesitate to use him in the future.