Squeaky speedo & slightly jittery needle - is there no fix for this aside from new gauge?

I've an intermittent noise like a small budgie is trapped inside the dash, with a very slightly jittery speedo needle. Is imminent failure likely?

I spoke with the guy at the local garage who just rolled his eyes, sucked in a lot of air  & said "ooh mk1's & 2's for ya - new gauge, you're better off buying a louder stereo"

I realise the speedo cable being square is a common fault, but I don't want to replace my speedo as the car has a genuine 89k on the clock & the less I do to mess with that, the better.  Is this replacement really the only fix?

well worth popping cable off and spraying a little lube in the back of speedo, only a little bit use something liek a silicone spray lube

then try another cable, to rule it in/out you coudl try driving it with cable unplugged to see if noise stays or goes.  also something suitable pused into the hole on speedo and spun will show you if its the speedo thats sticky i imagine

good points John, I'll try that and report back

Mine does the same, but only in winter and only when cold. After 10mins it goes away. 
Exactly the same as yours. 
However I know for a fact it's the cable. I ran mine for a few weeks without the cluster in place and the noise was worse. 
And… I forgot to lub it when I put it all back together too! 
The sticky speedo is likely to be the speedo though. Mine has 146k. But like john says, a bit of lub both ends should help. 

Agree with rubjonny, I changed my cable and it was hanging on by a few strands and caused mine to do the same as yours.

Dan

I had the same problem after fitting new dash lights. Eventually the cable snapped just behind the speedo clocks, so changed the cable and all good. Easy, cheap job to fix, just a bit fiddly ensuring the new cable is seated correctly into the back of the instrument cluster.

Also try moving the cable over a little and see if that helps if not try a new cable and my be worth finding another garage if that's the sort of comments they come up with as they might only be able to find faults if they plug a computer into the car and that tells them what's wrong.

I'd lost sight of this over winter - looking at the guide, it reckons removal of steering wheel and dashboard to get at the speedo cable

Any easier way of doing this/ getting into the back of the clocks ??

cheers, Andy

Yes, remove the trim/cover above the pedals and look up behind the dash with a torch, access is not great so you can remove the drivers seat (remove trim at the rear runners and a nut and bolt at the front) to make it easier to see.

You don't need to remove the steering wheel to get the instruments out as there is plenty of room once the trim is out of the way.

As you can see in my picture the steering wheel is still on, you can see the speedo cable high lighted in the picture.


 

perfect, thanks mate. I'm getting that out tonight!