For months I had been planning my gauge swap in my Firebird. I had read all the articles and knew that my car had an electronic speedometer. After finally getting a new set of gauges I began to do the swap. There was one problem though my car has a mechanical speedometer!
Why does my car have a mechanical speedometer? It's an 87 so it should be electronic. Also I know nothing about the car has ever been changed because the previous owners were family.
The pics are of the speedometer cable. I know it's hard to tell.

 

It could be because your a base model v6, or possibly an early 87 and they were getting rid of parts. I'm not sure of this because i've read the same things that you probably have about the switch to digital earlier in the firebirds than in camaro's and in the junk yard i've notices that it's hit or miss. To be honest i haven't even checked my guages in my '88, but i think that it's digital...i hope...

 

I have an 86 firebird and I have the mechanical speedo. It was originally the V6, but it had the engine swap done. Depending on what kind of gauges you bought, you're going to need an electrical pulse sender for them to work at all. Just referring to the one from autometer, it screws right into the tailshaft of your tranny where the mechanical cable is situated right now. After it's screwed in, you need to have it wired with a switched 12V source and wire the sender wire up into your gauge cluster which goes to one of the terminals on the speedo. After this, you're going to have to program it with the instructions that came with the speedo. Hope this helps!

 

After much searching, I have since discovered that apparently base Firebirds kept the mechanical speedos after the 1986 switch to electric that you see most people refer to. I guess I should have done a more thorough search. Since I don't really feel like wiring in a VSS I guess I'll be living with what I have. Thanks though.

 

I thought the vss started in 88?
My 87 Camaro had a speedo cable and it was all original.
My 88 firebird(long gone) had a vss.

 

Firebirds switched before Camaros. I believe Camaros switched in 1990 but I may be mistaken. Why GM did that is beyond me.

 

Well, if you wanted a diff speedo than stock, i would definetly put the effort in to wire it up and get a more attractive and accurate gauge. Can't call yourself a hot rodder if you don't put the effort!

 

I'm not attempting any kind of hot rod. I just wanted oil, water, tach, and voltage. And I wanted everything to still look stock. Hence me trying to find a stock cluster with instruments.