Want to put and aftermarket tach in a rallye dash

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moparmat2000

moparmat2000

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Anybody here put an aftermarket tach in a rallye dash where the blanked off center hole is. I am concidering doing this in my sons rallye dash. I am keeping a vac gage in my rallye dash and using a shift light. I have seen the $240 aftermarket rallye dash tachs and heard they are junk.

What aftermarket tach did you use, and how did you mount it? I was concidering making a flat aluminum plate that screws in where the tach mounts, and drilling out its center to mount the gage into to it. I am looking for ideas, and pix with different tachometers used in this location.

Thanks
Matt
 
moparmat2000 said:
Anybody here put an aftermarket tach in a rallye dash where the blanked off center hole is. I am concidering doing this in my sons rallye dash. I am keeping a vac gage in my rallye dash and using a shift light. I have seen the $240 aftermarket rallye dash tachs and heard they are junk.

What aftermarket tach did you use, and how did you mount it? I was concidering making a flat aluminum plate that screws in where the tach mounts, and drilling out its center to mount the gage into to it. I am looking for ideas, and pix with different tachometers used in this location.

Thanks
Matt
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Redline installed for me works great!These aftermarket tachs don't seem to work good with points,Mine works great with electronic Ing.

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There was a thread somewhere where a guy turned the blank panel upside down and mounted an aftermarket tach in it. It was pretty clever and looked nice for cheap
 
i bought one like pictured above from classic ind. and the font is crooked/ not level the rpm x 100 is slanted upwards a bit. burned again
 
I was looking at these different tachs to remove from their housings and fit them into a blankoff plate in the dash. All are 3&3/8" .

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Middle 2 are eqqus. Lower one is speedway motors. Top one is New vintage USA. I think the top one has a font close to OEM.
 
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I used one of these and flattened the curved bracket but kept it L shaped, rotated it 180 degrees and screwed it to the top back side of the metal instrument panel housing.

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This is kinda the plan, Whatever i get, i am going to remove it from its housing, and ditch the glass, put it behind the stock gage glass with the raised center nub to make it appear stock. Only want to hook up the power, gnd, tach feed. Let the cluster lighting backlight it. Yours looks good bodyperson, but dust and dirt can get inside the cluster if its left open back there.
 
moparmat2000 said:
This is kinda the plan, Whatever i get, i am going to remove it from its housing, and ditch the glass, put it behind the stock gage glass with the raised center nub to make it appear stock. Only want to hook up the power, gnd, tach feed. Let the cluster lighting backlight it. Yours looks good bodyperson, but dust and dirt can get inside the cluster if its left open back there.
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Good point. Ill work on that. I got to pull it back apart and paint the needles orange. Don't know what the hell I was thinking painting them silver DUMB.
 
Cover it up with aluminum speed tape on the back. Just dont let it stick to the circuit boards.
 
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Got the needles painted. Much better. I haven't looked at that instrument panel for years. I have some of that metal tape some place. Good idea. That stuff is sticky. Thanks for A little prod to get something done on my 'cuda moparmat.
 
I wonder if i couldent just buy a decal kit or see if the seller would make and sell just the tach decals to me, and i could just reface an aftermarket tach, and repaint the needle to match. Id have to buy a 6k rpm tach.

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3 3/8" is the way to go. You modify the gauge cup to fit the dash and you end up with the gauge taking up the entire space in the original hole, so you get a full size gauge and not some doubled up bezel with a little gauge in the middle.

I used this one Stewart Warner Heavy-Duty Series Tachometers 82171

I had to cut the gauge cup down some so it would be spaced back correctly and fit through the back of the gauge. Then I cut apart the original cup that was in the rallye dash to block the tach and epoxied it to the new gauge cup. End result bolts in just like a stock tach. It will protrude further back, but it should clear everything.

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I still have to repaint the needle but that's easy enough. It'll look better in my actual dash, the one in the pictures is a parts dash and the lenses are kinda foggy.

moparmat2000 said:
I wonder if i couldent just buy a decal kit or see if the seller would make and sell just the tach decals to me, and i could just reface an aftermarket tach, and repaint the needle to match. Id have to buy a 6k rpm tach.

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The problem with that is the 3 3/8" gauges have a larger face than the original tachs did. I think you'd have a hard time matching up the sweep of the new tach to match the old face, the calibration would be hard to get right and if you didn't the tach wouldn't be accurate.
 
My 68 was born with a factory tach in that hole. I tookit out and put a Vacuum gauge in there; that tach was too small and too slow. I put a 4"/270sweep,Autometer-8K, topside on a floating bracket. Now I can see 7000 coming, right in my line of sight; no searching in the dark with ever increasing speed.
And when I'm cruising, I just float it off towards the passenger side.
Or maybe it was an AutoGauge, Can't recall. It came with a lil shift light and an adjustable rev-limiter, whoot! I set the rev-limiter to 2250 when I'm cruising 65mph. No speeding tickets for this cowboy.
It also came with a shift-needle that I set to 5400, just cuz.
 
Mine had a steering column mounted one when I bought the car. I was looking for a factory one, but decided l liked the vacuum gauge. I left it on as I think it has that “day 2” period correct look.

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That looks great 72, are you going to trim the sides down a little so the factory back lighting will light up the gage face?
 
moparmat2000 said:
That looks great 72, are you going to trim the sides down a little so the factory back lighting will light up the gage face?
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Nope. The tach has its own light, and that clear ring in the cup is a disperser for the light that goes in the back of the gauge. Gives much better light than the stock set up.

When that tach gets installed I’m also running LED strip lighting inside the cluster to brighten things up, I’m doing away with the stock lighting.
 
I did the LED strip lighting on my 67, also plan on doing that with my sons car. Of course he only turned 6 in September. Now the plan is to round up all all the pieces or at least most of it by the time he turns 11, then dive in on it. I figure between everything it needs done we should be done by the time he is 15 or so.
 
How do you do the led strip lighting in the dash? Haven’t heard of it.
 
Heres pix. I used uncoated flexible peel n stick 5630 dimmable LED strip in green. Theres other colors available. Coated is for outdoor use in wet weather conditions. You wont need that.

I peeled and stuck the light strip around the perimeter of the gage bucket, then cut it at one of the cut lines to terminate the end, soldered the wires into a bulb socket, plugged it in,, and reinstalled the gages. Its wired in parallel, so it only needs wire leads hooked up on one end of the strip to light it up. I also plugged in the other sockets to keep the dust out.

Since LEDs are polarity sensitive, you can bench check with a 9 volt and alligater clip test leads. If it doesnt light with the negative batt terminal wired to the gage bucket as ground, reorient the bulb socket 180° replug in, and it should light up.

The light strip has a cut line every 3 light segments along with positive and negative solder tabs. You can see the cut line and solder tabs in pic #1 on the light strip material. Typically a 5 meter roll will run you about $8 off evilbay. Thats about 13 feet !!! Bucket will only need about 4 feet of the stuff.

Hope this helps you out
Matt

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I also have done 2 other things to take the devil out of the rallye dash. I did an ammeter bypass, , converted my ammeter to volts. And i bypassed the IVR in the fuel gage, and made a solid state IVR to attach to the back of the cluster. Notice how my ammeter looks like its on full discharge in my last pic. Its actually a volt gage with no power applied.
 
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