Hello all, Does anyone make a Decent Quality reproduction in dash tach for our cars? I bought a Year One piece back in the later 1990's and it really sux. It reads ok at idle and normal driving, but when I hammer it, it "looses it's mind" and reads low, or gets stuck at 4,000 or the needle just bounces around. I sure would like a good one!!!
in dash tach OPGI is selling one, probably same ,newer manufacture as Y/O.....also...dont buy the Y/O repro rally guage ..its made by parts place, and doesnt light properly..IMHO year one is just a slick reseller, and is selling more and more crap as the GM parts dry up..10-15 years ago they had some really killer original stuff...no mo
sbbuick - The Tach's from OPGI is made from a company called Tach Tech in Oregon. I found out this information when I bought one from OPGI and it arrived not working. When I called OPGI to send me another, they had me ship it to Tach Tech in Oregon for repair. Here's the bad news. Once Tach Tech shipped it back to me, it didn't work again! I gave up and called OPGI for a refund. It's really a crap shoot. Just my 2cents......
I'm a mechanical kind of guy, so if I can take an "electrical" problem and make it a "mechanical" problem then I have a chance at fixing it :bglasses: When the in dash factory tach in my '74 Chevelle quit and could not be repaired here's what I did: I found a new production tach that had the same graduations on the gage face (ie, 0 - 7000 in a 270 degree sweep), which happened to be from an IROC Camaro in my case. I took those guts and mounted them to my existing tach face (using little screws painted black), and rewired it to pick up the power, ground and tach signal. I turned the ignition key to "run", stuck my needle on the spindle and it has been fine ever since. That's was 1987 so it's been almost 20 years now :Brow: K
This is big issue with no resolution in sight. I do not know if the repro tachs available have gotten better, but the early repros had a tapered needle, instead of a straight needle. That problem may have been corrected. The other, bigger problem, is year application. Most folks know that early 70 gauges had the pointy lenses, and mid-70 to 72 had flat lenses. What many folks do not realize is that the font on the gauge face changed too. Early 70 gauges have much taller, skinnier numbers than mid 70-72 gauges. Every repro I've ever seen has the early, tall, font, even if sold with a flat lens. As far as accuracy, I have never heard of anyone with an aftermarket tach that read correctly.
Thanks for the replies, everyone. Wow, it appears that the scene is worse than I thought. At least mine works (sort of). I wired up a shift light to work when racing the car. At least I know when I have to shift or let off now. My tach certainly can't tell me that!
By the way, I did correlate this new in dash installation. I borrowed three GM racing tachs from work, two of which read the same and one of which was off. I took one of the two and compared it to the tach in the dash. It reads a little high (ie, 7000 on the in dash tach is really 6700) but I figured as long as I knew that relationship that it would be ok. Also, I have an MSD 6AL box with a rev limiter, so I know I haven't exceeded a safe rpm if I bump up against the chip. :Smarty: FWIW - K
Pretty sure it was a 1987 IROC-Z. The critical thing here is to find a newer production gage with the same "sweep" and range (ie, 7000 rpm over a 270 degree sweep). You may have to do some trimming on the blue plastic carrier (the support structure that houses the gages) but it'll work. K
The bad thing about year one is that they are not a manufacturer, there are basically just a vendor. They buy the parts from somebody else, and sell them for a huge profit. I learned this from a buddy of mine, as he was informing me of it. Otherwise I wouldn't have known any better, myself. ou: It would be nice for once to have someone do the same thing for buicks as people do chevys. You can almost build a chevelle from the ground up as a brand new car. I wouldn't mind doing that to a skylark if the parts were available. There are a lot of parts available for them, but at the cost of repro's for buicks, it would be way out of my budget to buy a lot of repro parts and even to attempt to build one from the ground up. :Smarty:
my in-dash tach works perfectly after I bought the adapter. I bought it from OPGI in the spring and it works good. I can test it against the revlimiter and it appears to be almost dead-nuts. I had good success.
Adapter ? ? ? So, an adapter from OPGI worked out well for you? Please let us know the details! What kind of problems were you having, AND that kind of adapter is it? Does it appear to be more like a complete electrical circuit, or is it more like a transormer, resistor, or cap? Please realize that we are really desperate to get our tachs FINALLY working right, even after all of our persistance. I PM'd you this message as well. THANK YOU!! Andrew
The adaptor was actually from MSD. I re-read my post and can see how it would be confusing. I bought the tach from OPGI. as far as who made the tach I have no idea. Here is my setup so you all know the facts: stock points distributor- with a point, nota a magnetic pick up deal MSD 6AL MSD blaster coil MSD wires delco plugs When I first installed the tach it would read kinda normal untill 1200 rpm, as soon as I reached that or went above it, it would drop below zero and not move. the needle was pointing straight down. the tach drive was in the side of the box like the diagram says. then I bought the msd tach adaptor. PN 8910. I wired that in like the diagram says, no change. I tried the resistor, no change. I was begining to get mad, after all I waited 2 months for a "3 week back order". then I decided to triple check the diagram, everything looked good. I figured the tach was junk, like I've read here on the board a thousand times. On a hunch of mostly desperation, I pulled the tach wire out of the side of the box, and spliced it into the white wire- the wire that comes directly from the points. wham, perfect operation. It shows to do this in the directions, but it is not clear. the directions are at this url: http://static.summitracing.com/global/images/instructions/msd-8910_frm_22265.pdf it works great. the only problem is the tach adapter is relatively huge, and gets pretty warm. thats my story, I'm sticking to it. does this help ya at all?
