1971 Eldorado odometer - very strange

[CAD57@2816]

When I purchased my 71 Cadillac Eldorado, the seller sent a picture of the odometer reading 30,500 miles.  When the car was delivered the odometer showed 30,555.  The title to the car showed the mileage at 49,560.  I took the car, as soon as it arrived, to the shop for some overall things to fix and when I got the car back the odometer read 49,575.  There was some electrical shorts that were repaired. The question is, does the odometer on the 71 Cadillac have an electronic odometer controlled by a "black box" somewhere?  If not, what would cause this anomaly?

[Cadman-iac]

No! Your odometer is cable driven. That is odd, unless there's a problem with the odometer itself where the numbers roll over out of sequence,  or perhaps a couple at a time, I don't know what else it would be.
But regardless,  you may not have gotten a car with as few miles on it as you thought.
I would have that looked at by a shop that specializes in speedometer issues.
Your speedometer/odometer is all mechanical. For sure you have a car with more mileage than what was advertised. The title tells the story.  My guess is that it's been tampered with.
If you have the original add for the sale of the car, that and the title would be great evidence of a case of tampering I would think.
The previous owner should have disclosed the fact that the odometer was not correct at the very least. If he had owned it for very long at all, he should have noticed that. If he only had it for a short time,  perhaps not. Still, it's worth looking into.

Rick

[hornetball]

Lay off the cocktails?

[Cadman-iac]

Lay off the cocktails?

A little more coke,a little less rum?

[Cadillac Fleetwood]

Beginning late in 1969, all Cadillac mechanical odometers are of the "tell-tale" type, which is to say that if the odometer has been rolled back, some plastic retainers inside the odometer are sheared or broken.  Normally when this occurs, you will see two bright lines, one between the ten thousands digit and the thousands digit, and the other between the thousands digit and the hundreds digit.  These are normally black, but rotate and show silver when tampering has occurred.

Charles Fares

[Cadman-iac]

Another possible way to tell if it's been messed with is if the digits aren't lining up correctly.  If it's been apart,  and not done properly,  the numbers will not want to line up right when they roll over.  Just something else that might tell you if there's a problem.
I discovered this when I repaired my trip meter on my truck. It didn't want to reset to zero,  and the first time I had it apart, I didn't get the little gears just right and it wouldn't line up correctly when it began to roll over.
HTH,
Rick

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

David,

For the odometer to be so different when you got the car back from the repairer, I would be going back to the repairer, and question him, or her, as to what was done, and what was the reason for the discrepancy of the Odometer reading.

There has to be a logical reason, and the only thing I can think of is if the Speedo has been changed.

As for the initial pictures, if the seller sent you the picture of the Odometer at the time of sale, and when you received the car, it showed the 55 miles more, then someone has simply driven the car for 55 miles during the time you received the first picture, and the car.

Bruce.

[Cadman-iac]

But he says that the title said it had 49560 miles on it,  and when he got it back from the shop, it had 49475 miles on it. A difference of just 15 miles at that point.
I was thinking that maybe the picture of the odometer at 30500 miles was an old picture from a while back,  but then he says that it showed 30555 miles when he first got it. So something isn't right with this. Either he was mistaken about the mileage when he received the car,  or there's definitely something wrong with the speedometer/odometer on that car.
The title and the current mileage are consistent, and if it was mine,  I would check the original picture of the odometer for a date and time stamp to verify if it was just an old picture used by mistake,  or if it's a recent picture proving that there's a problem with the speedometer.

Rick

[Matti R]

Hi,
I would politely ask the seller first. He knows the facts. If he tells, that is another thing.

[76eldo]

Those odometers come apart and go back together with no telltale evidence.
Back in the late 70’s I was in the car business and knew a lot of wholesalers.
Some of the shady ones used to roll back odometers all the time, especially on Caddy’s and Lincoln’s. They called it fixing the clock.

Something is screwy with yours. It can’t jump ahead and then go backwards.
Might not be foul play but it is not functioning correctly.  My guess is that the car  was clocked at some point and the rollers are not meshing correctly.

[TJ Hopland]

What stands out to me is how close both sets of numbers are.   Are you able to drive the car now?   Maybe just drive it and see what it does.   It looks like if its some mechanical wackiness it should happen somewhere between 15 and 55 miles which sounds like a nice afternoon cruise to me.   Maybe the thing is screwed up from past tampering and it just kinda toggles between those readings?   If that is the case then its likely someone in the past that did the damage and the last seller maybe didn't have it long enough to notice the issue. 

As far as the title do the states involved even care what the mileage is?  If the title went between states that could be an area where the mileage gets screwed up at least on the title.

[hornetball]

At least for TX, cars this age would be odometer exempt.

[79 Eldorado]

Another possible way to tell if it's been messed with is if the digits aren't lining up correctly.  If it's been apart,  and not done properly,  the numbers will not want to line up right when they roll over.  Just something else that might tell you if there's a problem.
I discovered this when I repaired my trip meter on my truck. It didn't want to reset to zero,  and the first time I had it apart, I didn't get the little gears just right and it wouldn't line up correctly when it began to roll over.
HTH,
Rick

Rick,
My Eldorado trip odometer wasn't working. When I had the dash applique off to change the heater core (entire dash needs to come out in 1979) the trip odometer drive gear slid out in 2 halves. I was able to get a new gear and now the trip OD functions and it zeros perfectly. The numbers line up on everything except the first whole number digit is a little off. I mean the trip odometer only (I never touched the odometer). I took the trip OD barrel out as a unit and never did anything to the individual pieces.

My question is that the same thing you were talking about? Do you recall what the procedure was to get everything perfectly inline? It doesn't really bother me too much because it seems like it's only the first whole digit the "1s" and not the "10s" but if there is something I could have done I would try to do it if there is a next time. In the '79 there are 2 gears at the end of a copper shaft. That shaft simply extends the rotation from the odometer over to the trip odometer. It was really bothering me that the trip odometer wasn't functioning because I use that to check mileage and because it's a good reminder of when I should re-fuel. I did put together a post with pictures on the forum when I did it.

Thanks,
Scott 

[Cadman-iac]

Scott,
I'm a little confused,  are you working on a 71 or a 79? Your original post said you were having trouble with your 71, but now you mention a 79. Not that it makes much difference, I believe the odometers are almost identical, except for the trip meter.  Isn't that orange on a 79?

I would have to look at my collection of speedometer parts to refresh my memory as to how the gears are supposed to go together. It's been over two years since I have had to mess with my own.
Give me a few days to get back to you on this,  I'm in the middle of a project and I'd like to get it done before the weather changes on me again. Mig welding outside is tough when the wind won't quit.

Rick

[79 Eldorado]

Hi Rick,
My Eldorado is a 1979. I wasn't the OP. I wasn't trying to "hijack" the thread but when I read your reply to the OP regarding your truck I was wondering if what I was seeing could be related to your little teeth description. Here's a link to my thread on the topic of the broken gear. with pictures...no hurry. I can say my trip odometer didn't work when I got the car so I was over the moon when I was able to fix it. I think it was that topic which lead me to this site.

http://forums.cadillaclasalleclub.org/index.php?topic=152268.msg409432;topicseen#msg409432

Thanks,
Scott

[Cadman-iac]

See! I was right,  I'm confused! Lol! No problem,  I'll see if I can get you the info before too long.

Edit:
I did want to ask you,  did you happen to rotate any of those tabs that stick out of the back of the odometer wheels? Those keep the wheels in alignment,  and if one was mistakenly rotated,  it would cause the misaligned numbers.
You can cause the numbers to run backwards for a few tenths before they stop moving altogether, like when you are backing up. It's a tamper resistant feature. I'm not sure exactly how it works,  I didn't try to figure it out, as it wasn't really important to me at the time.

[mario]

Gentlemen:
I've used this company for my truck that had a broken trip meter. It would not reset.
They had the correct gear, not cheap, but has worked for the last three years.

https://www.odometergears.com/about.php

Good luck.
Ciao,
Mario Caimotto.

[79 Eldorado]

Just for reference my Trip OD gear is 39 tooth and just under 0.850" (1979 Eldorado dear on both ends of the shaft which drives the trip OD). There was a number on it but I searched until I gave up on buying one.

Scott

[Cadman-iac]

Scott,

I have had a chance to look at my odometer parts, and here's what you need to do to fix the number alignment issue.
There are as you know, a small gear between each number roll, for lack of a better term, and these can get misaligned if the rolls are spread or separated, allowing that gear to disengage. If they don't mesh back into the exact same place,  then it throws the roll out of alignment.
I'm not sure how to explain this other than to tell you how to assemble it as if it were in pieces to begin with.  I'm going to have to do this a little bit at a time,  with pictures.  Since I am not sure how to post a text to each picture,  I'll have to post each separately with a text. So here goes.

This first picture shows the small gears. As you can see,  one side is different from the other. I showed three gears, each from a different year. I'm not sure which ones are from which years anymore, but the only difference is in the color or the material they're made of.
On one side,  there's 6 teeth all the same height, but on the other side, 3 of the teeth are shorter than the other three. This uneven side goes towards the right.

[V63]

At least for TX, cars this age would be odometer exempt.

There is a FEDERAL exemption after 10 years.