Looking for suggestions for a tachometer for our old '54 3100 Chevy. Now that she's up and running, I'd like to get one so I'm not just going by ear. If anyone has seen anything that blends with the stock dashboard, that'd be cool. Otherwise I'll just start looking for something that's not godawful big, somewhat understated. Thanks in advance!
A subtle but possibly not a cheap option would be using a clock housing for those years trucks and finding a mini tach that will fit in the housing. Also an early '50's olds clock mount is similar looking. Or find an older Sun Super Tach in a chrome cup for on top of the dash or on steering column. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I have this one and I like it: http://www.jegs.com/p/Sunpro/Bosch-Retro-Tachometers/1283230/10002/-1?Ns=P_Margin|0||P_SKU|0
Is that a slow car joke? Those tachs look good but not so sure they'd be useful when glancing down while shifting, but maybe my eyes aren't great.
One thing you should be aware of. There are a lot of neat older tachs around that look good and are operational, but need a separate transmitter box to work. The boxes contained batteries that were necessary to power the circuitry required to make these units work. Most of the time, when these transmitter boxes were left to sit idle, the batteries would leak and ruin the circuitry inside the transmitter box. Also, the batteries required are no longer available. If you do find a tachometer head that you like, but it has no transmitter box, all is not lost, as there are companies out there that supply replacement boxes or can insert modern "guts" into the original cases. I can do this if needed. I can also supply units to drive these older tachs on 6 volt vehicles as well. PM me if interested. One last thing you should be aware of. There are two types of tachometers out there. All modern self-contained units are what I call "motor-driven" tachs. They usually have 4 wires for input (tach power, tach signal, light, and ground) and are almost without exception only usable on 12 volt negative ground systems. The second type of electric tachometers are "meter-type" tachs. They operate essentially as ammeters, which is why the transmitter boxes (mentioned above) were required. These units usually have two or three wires going into them (tach signal from the box, ground, and sometimes light). If you find something you like, feel free to get back to me and I can probably get you going with what you want.
Thanks for the explanation. I would like to get something readily available and over the shelf, but not super gaudy. The online retailers seem to have black gauges without being too big. About 3 3/4”. I would like something understated. Just want something my newbie brain can wire up, put on the dash or steering column and call it good.
I believe the unit "37hotrod" shows in his post is an older "meter-type" tachometer. The unit of the right is probably the transmitter box. The first thing that should be done is that box should be opened up and inspected and the batteries checked. If it has been sitting too long, there may be bad news in there. Let's hope not.
Basically, I just don’t want a big, white Autometer tach staring me in the face. If I had a small, black gauge with an arrow for shifting that was easy to hook up and mount,!@ that’s probably be fine. If someone knew of a retro piece that had modern internals, that’s be a huge bonus. Stuff like meezy looks good, retro, but maybe a bit better “at a glance “ visual.
Yes it has been. Has a generator and 12v battery- has been running around like that for 30 years or more.
I have a smaller Sun-Pro tach on my '51 Ford. I had a larger one on it originally, but I didn't like it so I went to the smaller unit. I like the simple looks of the Sun-Pro, but they are just cheap, plastic units. This same unit is available with a black face and white numbers as well.
Since I use this car as a test bed for my many projects, I just used a standard worm-drive hose clamp and applicable rubber pads around the steering column. There is a "foot" on the tachometer that the clamp catches. If this was a permanent installation I'd probably ....... Nah, I'd go the same way because it's unobtrusive, cheap, and it works. I think the tach shown comes in white or black face and 3 3/4" and 2 1/4" diameters. Look at "Amazon.com"; there are literally hundreds of choices. BTW, I have a couple of mega-bucks Autometer racing tachs, and for all intents and purposes, this one is plenty accurate.
My '52 3100 Chevy was an unfinished project when I got it. (It's still unfinished.) It came with a set of Dolphin dash gauges already in it. So I wish to match those with one of their tachs. They make a "big" and a "little" and I bought one of each. My plan is to use a cut down, cast aluminum oil filter cover as a pod for the big one, or a cast, fined coil cover for the little, which ever I like best. I have enough room on the steering column for either and you can see the clamps I have for mounting. I think the finned and polished pods have a "just right", Art Deco style to match the rest of the dash. I found the oil filter pod for a quick photo but the coil cover version is lost somewhere in that black hole I call a garage. Use your imagination for that one.
Mine's an old Stewart Warner, originally used with a sender. I gutted it and installed modern solid state guts from a modern $20 8 grand swap meet tach with the same 270 degree sweep
All new VDO movements in OEM dash with a new VDO tach. I had new decals printed to reproduce OEM font and style etc.
Wow, now there's some great ideas. Where do you guys have your decals reprinted? Those are ALL some great looking tachs.
Auto electrician had them printed in reverse so they appeared right way around when applied to the inside Sent from my SM-T355Y using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Here's mine and the link to it https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ge-tachometer-for-a-47-53-chevy-truck.741556/
I use vintage Sun Super Tach ll's. No sender required and has vintage looks. P/N CP7901. No problem finding them on eBay.
58 Impala dash Hello, In our 58 Impala, the large, chrome one looked funny everywhere we placed it on the dash. We did not want holes on the dash for the mount. We even found two screws under the top edging of the dash gauge frame. This was the best place to attach a mount without blocking the windshield. The large chrome tach was too big, even for this space. We found a smaller diameter, (about 3” across, 3” deep) all black tach in an Army Surplus store in Long Beach. The sales guy said it worked. It came with separate wires and transmitter box. When we finished hooking it up, it was very accurate, including a great, inside light. This small form, black tach used the Impala dash screw holes to mount it without blocking the important stuff (like the first 10 mph or the last 120 mph reading on the stock speedo) Besides, when we went through the quarter mile, the red needle of the Impala always pegged the area past the 120 reading. The actual time was 98.5 mph in the quarter. The stock 4:11 gears had the correct mph readings from the factory, but those 4:56 gears threw out crazy readings. So, we went by the RPMs only, to stay at a legal speed limit around town. We just remembered what RPM vs MPH was when the 4:56 gears were installed. Yes, we could have the speedometer calibrated for the 4:56 gears, but we were changing gears almost weekly and that was a pain to keep going back to the shop for recalculations. We just remembered those rpm vs mph readings. (With a rounded rear cover?) It had 4 holes on the face plate for their own screw-in mounts. We mounted it on those dash screws and it had a built in light that worked. Thanks, Jnaki These may have come from the Douglas Aircraft Surplus Yard in Long Beach and ended up in that nearby Army Surplus store. A lot of our HS clothing came from that Army Surplus Store. One comes to mind: Army Green, High Top, Canvas, Tennis Shoes. Boy, that was a big hit at school. But, at the weekly, drive-in show and tell that always happened Friday night, that small black custom tach under the speedometer dash lip got bigger raves than those green high top tennis shoes.
Not sure how "cool" it is but here is mine...works for the flathead.... Dont hate me for the mounting...it is an on-going issue that I hope to have sorted by spring 20180317_233959 by Chappy444 posted Dec 1, 2018 at 10:31 AM Chappy
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