Aftermarket Tach Install

[jhwkns]

Hello Everyone!
I know that this has been gone over pretty extensively for camaro tachometers, and much of the good advise in those threads applies here as well. After having bad luck with a camaro tach I decided to go a different route. I found the AutoMeter on ebay. I won it for twenty six bucks. It was my first ever ebay buy. I hope they're all this good! I'm not sure if this tach is still being made. I read somewhere that they discontinued the 3 3/8ths gauges. Whether or not that applies to the tachometers as well I don't know. There are other brands available though. I know that afew people on the board have used a Sun tach, and done the same thing.

A: This is what I started with. A tired looking dash cluster, and a tach in a shiny chrome case.

B: This is what I found after I removed the housing. The dial itself wasn't as large as I had hoped. Notice that it barely extends
past the lines on the dial. Because of this the cutout in the front panel didn't allow for much of an overlap. All of the instruments
are recessed behind this panel so you want to install your tach this way as well.

C: Cutting the holes. I used a dremel tool with a cutoff wheel. I stayed inside of the line I scribed, and finished it with a small
sanding drum. I also had to cut a hole in the back panel to clear the circuit board
When viewed from straight on it's very obvious that the instruments are'nt centered in the dash openings.
It's designed to viewed at a downard angle. When you layout the hole in the black panel this needs to be considered,
as does also the placement of the dial behind this hole. Be very careful with your layout because if the tach isn't aligned with
the other gauges it'll look funny. Also notice in the picture the little black things. Those are an O-ring that I cut into five pieces.
They're 3/16ths thick, and attached with contact adhesive, and will act as spacers behind behind the dial.
In the center of the picture is the retainer. I made it from a mason jar lid. To go in between the the retainer and the back of the dial
I cut a shim from the plastic lid off of a coffee can. I know that all sounds kinda hillbilly, but it actually worked really well.

D: Tach installed and ready to go together. I painted the whole inside bright white. The face, the inside of the mason jar tach retainer, and one side of the coffee can lid spacer all got a coat of satin black.

E: I positioned the dial and tacked it into place with hot glue onto the rubber spacers.
I then attached the retainer with pop rivets from the front side. I used a big C-clamp when I drilled for the rivets. It helped a lot.

F: Time to put it together. Notice that the heads of the rivets will be well out of view.

G: The circuit board only protruded through the back housing about a quarter inch. Much more then that would've required
modifying the clusters printed circuit.

H: I covered it all up with a piece of the stuff I used for sound deadener in my cab. Really sticky stuff.
I didn't want to leave a path for dust to get in.

I: I grounded the tach to the backplate. (black wire) The pos. (red) lead is conected to the common hot at the fuel gauge.

J: All ready to install.

K: Fortunatly I had everything on hand that I needed. The whole job took about four hours.

[jhwkns]

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[jhwkns]

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