No light on the speedometer?

[Darryl.Richman]

That little "grain-of-wheat" bulb doesn't throw a lot of candlepower. It has to be a pretty dark night to get more than just an indication of where the speedo needle is, on the stock speedo. Still, you should be able to tell that there's some light inside the speedo.

Are you sure that the light comes on when the bulb and it's holder are inserted into the bottom of the speedo? The power for the light comes to the tiny screw terminal on the bottom of the bulb holder, but the ground lead goes through the speedo body and clamp, to the headlight shell. You should make sure that you have continuity from the speedo body to terminal 31 on the circuit board. If not, the light won't come on.

[VBMWMO]

I've a '55 R50 which had many odd things done to it by a previous owner. Some of the odder are in the headlight components. Apparently a pre-54 headlight housing was implanted with 55- headlight internals, including the two lights at the rear, and a hole was gouged in the rear to accomodate these lights. The hole is in the spot where the crescent moon plastic red/green light cover would go, but that light cover doesn't fit the hole at all. There are still two empty holes on the top/sides of the housing where the old style indicator lights would have gone.

But that's a digression, the main problem I'm having right now is that the speedometer doesn't light up when the lights are turned on. The odder thing is that the little bulb in the bottom of the speedo DOES work, but somehow the light just doesn't make it up and onto the face of the gauge. The speedo is not original and had 4 miles on the odometer when i got it, but it looks in very good shape, and to my surprise seems to have the right gearing to go with my bike, so that it's accurate. Because of this I'm reluctant to buy another $200 one. I don't suppose there's some common ailment that prevents the light from getting to the top, is there?