I never bothered to replace any of the instrument bulbs in the year that I’ve had my CB550, it was never a high priority, but seeing as how I have the time and no other major improvements to make on this cafe racer I may as well start now.

I suppose there are many ways to do this, I just wanted the easiest way to poke inside, so I removed the two little acorn nuts, and unscrewed the speedo cable. The gauge came right apart.

I hadn’t realized how dirty and old they were. It was at this point that I decided I was going to replace these all together with some mini gauges.

Surprisingly, there were actually two bulbs inside the speedo. The inside wasn’t any better looking.

Simple classic design, push in and twist counter-clockwise to remove.

Here is a pic of the bottom of the upper portion of the gauge.

Busted and burned out.

The second bulb wasn’t clear, it had a mirror like finish to it. Is this stock? Does anyone know what the purpose of the chrome bulb is?

I was once again surprised, this time by the sheer weight of it. HEAVY!

The lower portion of the gauge was crusty. You can see the weathered and cracked plastic and the rusted metal. I’m going to replace the bulbs for the time being, in fact, I’m going to replace them with LED bulbs, but ultimately the gauges aren’t going to stay on the bike for very long. I see a shiny new mini speedo and tach in my cafe racer’s future.