Tii Tachometer is dead

[Get2theBimmah]

Previous owner said it worked for him but the car sat for a year before I bought it. It's not showing any signs of life. I cleaned off the contact under the hood and I pulled the cluster out to clean and inspect. Is there something I should be looking for internally behind the cluster? Thanks!

[nbristow01]

Run a godd ground wire to it and see if that helps. You can also use a meter on it to determine if it is grounded

[bnam]

Which contact did you clean under the hood? The tach is connected to the distributor condenser, not to the coil. This connector has 2 wires to it. One from the coil and other from Tach. I've had one of these wires break-off. This could leave the condersor still connected to coil, but tach disconnected.

B

[BillWilliams]

Bnam, not arguing but when I put a Crane in my 72tii I just left the wire that connected to the condenser dangle and mt tach still works. Could there be different arrangements or did I get lucky?

[Hans]

You're both right, according to Haynes. Some models/years have black wiire going to coil first, others to dist. first, with short run the other. So in this case, maybe wire back to tach is disconnected or flakey

[nbristow01]

I say before you start chekcing everything else make sure that guage is grouded properly or you will chase your tail...ask me how I know LOL

[bnam]

Bnam, not arguing but when I put a Crane in my 72tii I just left the wire that connected to the condenser dangle and mt tach still works. Could there be different arrangements or did I get lucky?

My bad... I should have paused to consider that it could be different by year. My info applies to '74. Perhaps it is an early/late thing.

Byas

[Get2theBimmah]

Run a godd ground wire to it and see if that helps. You can also use a meter on it to determine if it is grounded

Here is the ground connection on the back of the tach. Everything in the cluster works fine except for that. I will have to check it with a meter, but this connector doesn't seem terrible...

Which contact did you clean under the hood? The tach is connected to the distributor condenser, not to the coil. This connector has 2 wires to it. One from the coil and other from Tach. I've had one of these wires break-off. This could leave the condersor still connected to coil, but tach disconnected.

B

I believe I cleaned the black wire that went down by the dizzy, to be honest I did it a few weeks ago and forget specifically..It was the only wire I saw leading out from the firewall to the area where I had read about on here.

I say before you start chekcing everything else make sure that guage is grouded properly or you will chase your tail...ask me how I know LOL

Haha Good call, I haven't spent a ton of time or lost sleep over this, but I'm finally going to be getting it on the road in the next couple of weeks and would love to have it functioning. I will get a meter and check it out.

[Get2theBimmah]

Run a godd ground wire to it and see if that helps. You can also use a meter on it to determine if it is grounded

Here is the ground connection on the back of the tach. Everything in the cluster works fine except for that. I will have to check it with a meter, but this connector doesn't seem terrible...

Which contact did you clean under the hood? The tach is connected to the distributor condenser, not to the coil. This connector has 2 wires to it. One from the coil and other from Tach. I've had one of these wires break-off. This could leave the condersor still connected to coil, but tach disconnected.

B

I believe I cleaned the black wire that went down by the dizzy, to be honest I did it a few weeks ago and forget specifically..It was the only wire I saw leading out from the firewall to the area where I had read about on here.

I say before you start chekcing everything else make sure that guage is grouded properly or you will chase your tail...ask me how I know LOL

Haha Good call, I haven't spent a ton of time or lost sleep over this, but I'm finally going to be getting it on the road in the next couple of weeks and would love to have it functioning. I will get a meter and check it out.

[jgerock]

Black wire connects to the empty spade connector shown in this picture.

Black wire shown loose in this picture

Connected to tachometer

[bnam]

If there is only one wire at the dizzy, then it's not the tach wire -- it must be the coil wire and the tach wire must be at the coil.

[Get2theBimmah]

Black wire connects to the empty spade connector shown in this picture.

Black wire shown loose in this picture

Connected to tachometer

Thanks for the pictures. So if the ground is bad back there would it be internally or through those wires? My double post above lacked the picture I took of the back of my cluster.

I took the one wire off right now intentionally for the sake of the picture.

If there is only one wire at the dizzy, then it's not the tach wire -- it must be the coil wire and the tach wire must be at the coil.

Thank you, I'll have to check it out again then. I must be looking at the wrong wire. Couldn't have hurt though, because the one I cleaned was pretty oxidized lol. That leads me to believe that another connector is equally as corroded..I am going to have to find that tach wire...

[Get2theBimmah]

Just wanted to check back in and confirm that a new ground wire did the trick.  I also had no fuel gauge and my temperature was very inaccurate. Once I grounded those two odd nuts on the back of the cluster (fuel gauge area) My fuel gauge worked, temp was solid, and my tachometer now functions.