1981 KZ1000 Speedo/Tach Rubber damper alternative

Hello everyone! When attempting to change a burned out light in my speedometer last night, I discovered that one of the previous owners had glued the rubber damper onto the gauge. This absolutely shredded it when I removed the gauge to change the light! It seems like it's pretty difficult to find new dampers, the part number I found 92075-1315 seems to be out of production. I used a wiper blade as an alternative today and it seems to have worked well! I appreciate any thoughts on this method. I hope I can help anyone else who has this problem!

Here's the remnants of the old dampers, they just disintegrated to the touch.


Here's the wiper blades I used, these were just some I had lying around but the local auto parts store has them $10 each. You can probably get them cheaper online.


I removed the rubber wiper from the rest of the wiper blade, wrapped it around the gauge and cut it to size.

I used a staple to hold the two ends together and rotated the rubber blade until the seam was at the bottom of the gauge, out of sight. The staple is just temporary as the gauge bezel will hold the blade in place once the gauge is bolted down- a dab of glue or a piece of tape would've done the same job.


Here it is attached- you can see some residue of the glue the previous owner used.


I bought some 5/8 plastic washers to use behind the bolt for the gauge, this spaces out the bolt in the back allowing the gauge to snug up closer to the bezel. I had to use 2 to get it as tight as I wanted, but if my rubber spacer would've been in better shape I could've gotten away with just 1.


And all done! For how little I spent on it, I think it looks pretty good. I've only ridden once since I put it together and it help up well during the ride, the gauge didn't move at all. Time will tell if it lasts!

Genius !!!

Plus it looks good

It looks like it came that way from the factory! Very nicely done! Ed

Brilliant solution!

Tidy mod.

Bonus: wiper rubber should tolerate exposure (unlikely) and aging (likely) very well.

Well done!

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

Very well done repair!

Rick H.

Have two nice used, and four NOS 92075-1315 dampers. I've had several inquiries from outside the US which I have referred to noranipponnirinsha@gmail.com located in Australia, since I don't ship outside the US.

Good to know someone still has them! I mainly needed something urgent as I ride this bike (mostly) every day- as well as my gauge bezels are already beat up and dented, I just took more pictures of the nicer looking one!

That is very convincing as a factory part. Nice job.