The following details the process for restoring a prewar Schwinn Autocycle speedometer made by Stewart Warner.  When I received the speedometer the head was pretty much toast. The needle pin and calibration spring were missing which usually means the speedometer is junk.  Or at least that is what most people thought.  

As you can see the head is toast.

First step was to recover the face.  I used a high quality vinyl reproduction decal.  You need to rough up the original surface and make sure any rust is removed.  Once that is done you need to line up your decal on the face and cut your proper holes. I used a razor for sharp accurate cuts. They don’t have to be exact.  I will explain why later.  Notice the extra tab folds on the face of the Schwinn speedo. The Clipper faced speedos do not have these. This is an easy way to tell if it was a true Autocycle speedo.  Once you have your rough slots cut for face tabs, odometer numbers etc. you can apply the face.  Once it is applied I use a file to remove unwanted edges of the vinyl decal.   A round file is used for the needle hole. 

Most likely your bezel is going to be beat up pretty bad. The original bezel I had wasn’t in too bad of shape. I sent it off to Ed Couch who said he might be able to roll out dings and replate it. 

Original Bezel

We’ll see how it turns out.  Just in case, I fabricated another bezel from a reproduction.  The Autocycle speedometers have a window cut out on the side for the light to illuminate the speedometer at night.  I cut the window by using a dremel tool based on measurements of the original bezel.  A small cutting wheel is needed as well as a soft grinding bit.   Once the window is cut you need to grind the edges and make sure they are straight.  Notice that I also needed to cut out part of the bezel lip under the window.  For some reason the originals came like that and I wanted my copy to be exact.  It looks like my window isn't cut square but it is the camera angle.  It came out pretty well.

I also needed to cut a window out of the piece that keeps the speedo glass/plactic from falling down on the face. 

Cut

I removed the needle which was slightly oxidized and cleaned it. BE VERY CAREFUL. This piece is so delicate it will fold with minimal pressure.  If it does bend or if it already has dents you can usually straighten it using a needle nosed plyers. 

This pretty much wraps up what I could do on the speedo.  I sent the rest out Ed Couch for repair. I sent him all the pieces plus two clipper heads in case he needed parts.  Ed will remove the internals, paint the bucket, change the numbers, cut new glass/plastic and assemble.  I also sent Ed a piece of green transparency film.  This will be glued to the inside of the bezel where the window is cut out.  The original factory heads also came with this. 

Stay tuned for the Final example and completion.