CV Joints and Speedometer

[scole665]

Two questions on my 1986 Brat.

 

I know that I need CV joints on both sides. Is there a preferred brand? I see lots online, but they seem a little cheap in terms of price. I want to put on the best quality ones I can find so I don't have to do it again in a year. I cannot find Subaru ones at this point. Any ideas or suggestions?

 

The speedometer doesn't work but the odometer does. Any clues what I might have to do to fix the speedometer?

 

Thanks for any advise. I'm going to try to do this work myself (I'm no mechanic to say the least) so all helpful hints are welcomed by this novice.

[idosubaru]

my speedometer didn't work but the odometer did. i fixed it last night by replacing the entire instrument cluster it's actually not that hard on an XT6 and probably not much different on an EA81 brat, some things haven't changed much over time and i think this might be one of them. 4 screws for an under cover panel, then four 12mm bolts hold it in place from underneath and then remove some extraneous other things and disconnect plugs to get it out.

 

i'm sure there are other failure modes but in mine it turns out the speedo cable was allowing grease to travel all the way up from the trans/diff, through the cable, into where it attaches to the instrument cluster. this ruins the speedometer apparatus but allows the odometer to still work...or sometimes it does.

 

so i needed a new cable to better seal the grease from getting up into the cable. maybe it would be possible to clean it all up in the cluster and reassemble but installing another cluster was far simpler. i've taken them apart before and those parts are tedious to me and my time is valuable too. if you can grab a spare cluster you could disassemble it and see if it's something you'd like to dig into or not.