speedometer/ odometer problem

well I was successful replacing the gears in the speedo so now it's working but i can't get the needle to work correctly. I followed the instructions off of the scp site where you buy the new gears but one thing I couldn't figure out was where it said to mark the needle location before removing it. how can you mark how it's line up on a shaft that's about as big around as a needle? anyway i didn't mark it and removed it and replaced the gears and now i can't get the needle to work right, I've taken it off a few times trying different locations but I can't get it right, any help would be deeply appreciated. For now I went to the junkyard and removed a working 120 mph speedo out of a lx to have something to judge my speed until I get the 145 mph one fixed.

anyone have a solution?

I just repaired a couple of speedos a couple of weeks ago and didn't have any problem with the needle going back on. I didn't mark anything and found that the needle would only go back on the right way, like the shaft is D shaped or something. It was a little hard to get off. I bounced a couple of them off of the ceiling prying them off. I noticed that it was possible to jam the shaft, but pushing on it popped it back into placed and it moved freely and returned to zero Ok. I also noticed that sometimes the odometer wouldn't run with the new gears until I manually moved the the big gear a few miles to free it up and then it was fine. Of the 5 speedos I worked on, 3 had both gears broken, 1 had only the small gear broken, and 1 had only the big gear broken. I was able to make a big gear by making an impression in PlayDoh and filling it with epoxy. I cleaned it up and filed the teeth clean and it fit and worked pretty good. I'm trying to cast a small gear but haven't been able to make a good one yet.

Playdoh too cool.

i'll get a magnifying glass and see if i can see the "d" shape in the shaft and needle, thanks