Massey 65 Tractormeter Problem

1964 Model 65 AD204 diesel engine

Today I noticed my tractormeter bouncing off zero and failed to indicate anything meaningful. I replaced the tractormeter with one from the e place at the end of January from Reliable Aftermarket Parts and it only has about 23 hours on it. It was $58 plus shipping.

I checked the parts book and there is no drive or any such thing that fits to the end of the meter drive cable; it only pictures a felt washer. The meter drive cable is intact and the drive end is square at maybe 1/8 or a little larger. I didn't measure but it protrudes around 1 1/4", maybe a little more.

When I installed it, I had to screw with it to get it to work by playing with the tightness on the drive cable nuts. I did oil the cable prior to installing.

With the meter just bouncing off zero, has the meter failed already?.

If so where can I get a reliable and lasting tractormeter?
I use this thing bush hogging and rely on the instrumentation to be right or at least pretty close.

I'm going to inspect the square hole in the end of the drive at the camshaft and see what I can up in there. Maybe this square hole is stripped or something?

I had the same problem and put an o-ring that will fit just inside the nut in the tach end to take some tension off the tach and it is fine
now.

Thank you. That seems to be a pretty smart and easy fix.

Did you put the o-ring on the tach end or the drive end?

Do you remember what size o-ring you used?

You can use a gasket on the meter end (3/8" id x 5/8" od x 1/16" thick), and a gasket on the drive end (3/8" id x 13/16' od x 1/16" thick).

ptfarmer, thanks for the sizes.
I'll cut some gaskets and pick up some o-rings too to try when I go back up there and report back how it worked.
I do appreciate it.

Alrighty, today I tried gaskets and o-rings on both ends of the meter cable in various combinations with no luck. I began investing closer and this is what I found out.

On the meter end of the drive cable there is a clamp, kind of like a stop. This end fits into the meter drive and travels far enough toward the meter before the stop engages the meter that the cable on the camshaft end comes out of the square hole drive.
It's like the clamp stop thingy is in the wrong place and there is too much drive cable on the meter end past the stop.

I don't see a way to move the clamp cable stop thingy. I can either try a new drive cable OR I got to thinking about turning a small brass spacer to place on the meter end above the stop clamp thingy to keep the camshaft drive end from slipping out of the square drive and still mate with the meter.
Got to think about that one some more. Some careful measurement required.

I really think I have a mismeasured/mis made cable and it's a wonder that it ever worked to begin with. It took quite a bit of screwing with to get it to read on initial installation and it didn't last very long before it puked.