Hi Everyone, I took some time and got a little creative with my instrument cluster. I wanted to put a tach in where the clock is. I got the idea from an ebay item I saw last year. I bought a 2 1/8" Autometer Tach and used the guts and some spare plastic to fab a mount and I'm pretty happy with the results so far. I put the cluster into a spare housing I have and it looks even better that way. I would think this would work well for the 68 guys as well. SunPro has a small white faced tach that should work well in the silver cluster. What do you think?
James, that looks great! I've been procrastinating about installing my tach on the column. May have to look into this option instead.
This tach won't reset to zero with the igntion off. It was on 4k when it arrived, so I tried hard not to disturb it while doing everything. It's going to be a while before I can test it, I'm not sure when the motor will be ready. I wanted a clean look to the dash, so I thought this would be a good option for me. I'm going to use the dual gauge pod on the pillar for my water and oil pressure gauges. It only took a couple hours with a really sharp blade to disassemble, cut, shape, and fit everything. I used a clock blank from the spare cluster I have to mount it in. I took some pics during the process if anyone is interested in trying it.
I started with the clock blank out of the spare custer. I disassembled the Tach by removing the black bezel and glass, then sliding the Tach out of the housing. I checked to be sure the Tach face was the right size and then carefully cut out the raised section from the back side.
I had some plastic stock left over from my model building days. I cut a square section out and rounded the corners to fit snuggly, cut the piece in half, then cut out the center sections as needed to hold the Tach centered in the clock blank. Painted the sections satin black to match. I fitted the sections in between the Tach and clock blank, then secured with the mounting brackets that came with it.
All that was left was to put it back into the test cluster to check fit and looks. I'm going to cut down the mounting studs and change the nuts on the back before it goes into the car. I have the dash apart in my car so I was able to double check clearance and there's plenty back there for it.
I would bet this white faced mini tach from Sunpro would work okay for the silver 68 clusters. Cheaper than what I payed for the Autometer Tach too.
