I know that posts about colouring tend to get folk excited, but I'll ask anyway. What colour should the speedometer body be on my 1940 Matchless G3/WO? The spares list says the speedo head should be dull chrome, so that means the bezel is chrome, but what about the case itself? I understand that the makers just painted the bikes green instead of black, so all fasteners and other bits not made or painted in house were whatever colour they came in, so would the speedo unit just look like a standard Smiths speedo with a black body and chrome bezel?
Smiths were well geared up to provide 80mph Non-trip, non-illuminated speedo heads for the existing MoS contracts in 'Service Colour' - Khaki Green No.3 in your case.
This instrument was probably pretty well only supplied to service users as the UK 1939 civilian RTA regs required illumination, as far as I'm aware.
Thanks for that Rik. Mine is a 80mph unit as you describe, but one of 2000 bikes from contract C-7183 that were equipped with a trip speedo (not sure why?) the rest were, as you say fitted with non-trip, non illuminated units. The W.D. wiring diagram of the time for this bike also shows wiring for the speedo illumination and this is fitted to the speedo.