Well this started right after I got my car back from the clutch shop.

Anyone got ideas on what it is?

When I accelerate it started to flutter until about 45mph.

I'm guessing they messed up the speedo cable or something. Anyway to fix it?

 

I don't think its the cable. My wifes car does that and I changed the cable. Didn't help. I think its the speedometer itself.
Think about this: The gears and cable go in a 360 degree rotation, but the needle on the gauge doesn't. There is a thing in the speedometer that reduce the 360 motion into a smaller arch so the needle doesn't spin in circles.
Another possibility is where the cable attaches to the tranny. Maybe there are broken teeth on a gear in that little gear box. It might be possible that while your car is at a constant, the speedometer cable is speeding up and slowing down due to the irregular rotation of the gear with the missing teeth.

I doubt its the second scenerio because it would cause a problem at all speeds. I haven't bothered changing the speedometer in my wifes car so I don't know 100% that it is the cause of the problem.

 

It's entirely possible it's a damaged cable. If you kink the inner cable during reinstallation it will bind very slightly against the outer cable (slowing it down) and then pop loose (speeding it up) every revolution, so the speedo neede will bob up and down as it registers the cable's differing speeds.

I'm pretty sure I did this the first time I reinstalled the cable into the back of the instrument cluster (it's too damn short), because since then it wobbles up to ~40km/h (25mph). After that it's too fast for the speed to register so it smooths out.

 

cable is starting to go... classic symptoms.

 

How can I diagnose this quick? I have to determine if the shop broke it before they screw me again like they did with the broken ash tray and wiper switch.

 

mine was doing this for a lil while... when i had the car up i noticed that the sleeve where the cable goes into the tranny was so loose i could spin it by hand... went and tightened that up, speedo stuttering went away

 

when i had my civic si. i took it to over 120 which is where the little stud stops the speedo...well anyway. after that i didnt really watch the speedo cause i was just cruisin trying to be cool. so the next day when i took it out for a spin i noticed my speedo was bouncing. eventually i didnt have a speedo at all. turned out i had to tighten the speedo cable.