Speedometer question

During my tear down of my CJ I found my Speedo cable was broken at the T/case. Before buying a new cable I wanted to find the reason for it breaking. I tried turning the cable while it was still connected to the speedometer gauge. The cable would not spin and was stuck. I removed the cable from the gauge and then it spun fine. So after my quick troubleshooting, I decided that the speedomter was stuck, and looked like the PO played with it before. So I decided it was not worth messing with, and figured I would just get another. I found another used single digit on Ebay that said it worked perfect. After getting in the mail today I stuck the cable free spinning cable on it to see if it spun the gauge. The new/used gauge is locked up also, and will not spin CW or CCW.

Am I doing something wrong here? Or is this a normal problem with the speedometer gauge being stuck and not allowing the cable to spin. Do I need to do something to the gauge to fix it or it buy another?

Please help.

 

The Back of the speedo head has a brass knob of sorts sticking ou the back of the speedo head where the cable goes in. If you can spin this with your fingers it will make the needle jump but only by spinning it one direction only. Speedo units don't register when backing up. Make sure it will spin easily and check both. There is a small hole on top of the connection where the cable screws on that you can put some light-weight machine oil in. There is a wick inside to hold the lube.

 

I soaked it in WD-40 all night, Still stuck. Hopefully I can figure out another option to get it working.

 

WD40 is not a penetrating lubricant. Go get something like PB blaster( found at Lowes and Home Depot). The stuff works.

 

Yeah I know PB is a better product for such applications. WD is all I had on hands. But lucky enough the WD-40 finally worked. It broke loose and works fine now. Thanks gentalmen.