Is there a tach on the market that will fit into the stock position of an '83 but will allow me to use the stock face plate?

Or...is there a way to rebuild the stock tach so that it's actually accurate?

 

That's a damn good question.

I don't believe it would be easy to find a tach that would use the stock faceplate, because our tachs and gauges are backlit, and not frontlit.

 

For my peripheral port 13B car, I replaced the stock tach with an Autometer Ultralite 3 3/8 inch 10K tach. Looked pretty clean, IMHO.

 

i would just replace your tach with a used one from another cluster. it wouldnt be worth the time to rebuild.

 

^^Been there...done that...got the T-shirt. I'm stuck with the same problem. Tach sticks when it's cold (thick or dried lube for the needle is my guess) and it's reading about 1.2k too low according to the dyno.

 

my tach started going crazy the other day and jumping up and down at random...then the next day when driving my car it had stopped completely. I noticed today that when i turn the key and give the car battery power the tach jumps and stays at 5, but then when i start the engine it will drop back to 0 and maybe occasionally flip up in the most subtle of ways.

Any ideas? Is this common? Mainly what confuses me is the fact that it works when the battery is on but not with the engine...please excuse me if this is a dumb question, but i have no idea how a tach works and when looking at my Haynes manuel it made the whole things seem very daunting.

 

It could be your trailing ignitor. The tach receives its signal from this. Try switching the plugs between the two ignitors (once the car has warmed up - and is turned off). If the car runs like crap, then you are in need of a new trailing ignitor. Let me know your results.

 

If this just happens to be a '79, the tach also doubles as a volt meter when the key is on, without the engine running.
As for not working with the engine running, check to see that the pickup wire is still firmly attached. On '79's, this wire goes to the leading coil, 80-85 models, it's on the trailing.

 

Oops...it is an SA. Didn't notice until you mentioned it Roque.

So...back to my original post: is there a way to rebuild these things so that they're accurate? Perhaps gutting it and replacing the inards?

 

From my point of view, it's easier to replace with a known good unit. But then my electrical skills are taxed somedays by turning on a light switch.

 

Anyone know of a gauge thats got an odometer and will read out the mph? I was thinking of doing the swap above but to all of them. I remember when I had the '85 running, it had a autometer guage but it was on the left side of the dash. All the time it would read aleast 300 rpms higher than the stock unit. It made me wonder how accurate the other guages are.

 

thanks for the advice....doesn't look like i'll get to try it as my carb died AGAIN!