Speedo KPH vs MPH

[Adrian]

Hi, this speedo (picture borrowed from another post on the forum, thanks Jamie!) is similar to mine

IMG_0063.jpeg (3.3 MiB) Viewed 2838 times

The large numbers round the outside are KPH, the smaller ones towards the centre are MPH. Why is this? Is it a NATO thing? Mine was built and shipped straight to Northern Ireland where it spent its entire service life. So KM as the dominant unit does not make sense.
And it’s not clear if the distance counters are in KM or Miles. I can check that by comparing with distance on a navigation app. Need to know for the insurance mileage limit.

In practice it makes little difference as the instrument pack back lighting is so poor you can’t read the thing at night. Its quite hard to see the speedo during the daytime as it’s so low down. So I tend to rely on the Waze app (or Google or Apple) to show me my real speed even when I know where I’m going!

[AR4412]

Hi Adrian,

The possibilities are that the vehicle went into service with a KPH speedometer, (some RHD vehicles did,) it was swapped in service, or swapped by a previous owner. We have a RHD Lightweight here with a KPH speedometer, mine from the same contract came to me with an MPH speedometer fitted.

If your Speedo also has 940 printed at the bottom of the face, like the one pictured it is the right one for a LHD Lightweight running on 6.50" tyres. An MPH Speedo for 6.50" tyres would have 1504 printed on the bottom.

The trip meter and mileometer will read in Kilometres on the pictured Speedo.

Regards,

[Ridgy]

Adrian

Mine is a similar age to yours and also served its whole time in NI - and has a KPH speedo.

Cheers

Steve

[Adrian]

Ok, thanks for the responses. So I've done what I should have done in the first place and taken a picture of my speedo

2024-09-24_101808.jpg (2.51 MiB) Viewed 2817 times

Its exactly the same as Jamie's in the post viewtopic.php?t=8623&start=20

2024-09-24_104620.jpg (2.37 MiB) Viewed 2817 times

At the bottom it says SNT6209-45 920
And as per others, it doesn't look like its been swapped out.

Implication is that this generation of vehicles used in NI, were intended to have a tyre with a slightly larger rolling diameter than the standard 7.5 x 16s?