Spider speedometer sender

[dwmartin@domain.elided]

Fellow Alfisti -
Other day, the speedometer of my 1987 Alfa Spider never got off zero, and I 
started hearing strange noises (they were road-speed related and sorta 
metal-on-metal'ish) from the vicinity of gearbox.  Hmm, sez I, probably the 
speedometer sending unit ate itself for lunch and needs to be replaced.

Anybody got any other ideas for the problem?  Any trouble-isolation techniques?
Got any hints or tricks for replacing the sender or gotchas to watch out for?
When I unbolt it and pull it out, am I likely to have extracted all the broken 
parts, or might there be something inside the rear of the gearbox that can be 
reached only by at least partial disassembly of the gearbox (is that even 
possible while on the car)?
Could I fashion a temporary cover plate from scrap metal and have any problems 
driving the car (other than no speedo, of course), while waiting for 
replacement parts?
Seems fairly straight-forward, except that with the fact that I don't have 
jacks to get the car quite far enough off ground to comfortaby get to it and 
the cross-brace that supports the rear of gearbox being somewhat in the way, 
I'm thinking that it might be better to drive it to a shop than do it myself.
What do you suggest?

Dave Martin
Endwell, NY

pop-server.stny.rr.com
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