i fired up my 88 turbo 2 today and while doing so the tach died. reads zero at all times, but the shift up light comes on and the buzzer works. was wondering if this was indicative of a bad fuse, bad wire, bad coil or something else? i'd have to have to replace the tach or cluster

 

try with the rear coil fist.

 

I presume you mean the trailing coil?

 

Holy cow after checking pricing on those coils. I think I'm going to try checking continuity between the gauges and coil. Reason being, and correct me if I am wrong, the shift up light still works and I would presume is driven by the tach or same tach signal. If that still works and the tach is getting signal, that would tell me the gauges is bad.

Sorry, brainstorming aloud.

 

Trailing coil provides the signal for the tach. You can jumper the short lengthed single Black wire coming from each coil to each other and this will allow the leading coil to provide the tach signal. If the tach works after jumpering then you know the tach is not the cause.

And you might want to briefly pull the EGI INJ fuse and place back in place to see if this changes anything.

 

Ya,I had this problem on my car briefly.
the Trailing coils and the leading coil have bullet connectors,and if you run a wire from the leading to the trailing bullet connector ,By Rights your Tach should come back.
Also just for the Hell of it change your trailing plugs.If they are fouled you get NO signal.

 

you know, i had to pull the INJ fuse to clear the engine out of fuel while cranking (i flooded it ) and thats when the tach died. i drove it again last night and the tach was working fine. whats the correlation?

 

That particular fuse powers the coils.

 

I've lost the tach momentarily in that past and each of the two times was when the battery had been run down and replaced or dead battery jumpered. Always came back after driving the car again for a few miles and or turning it off and then restarting it and driving it. NO idea why this happens othere than some fail safe mode of the ECu that shuts down the trail coils when the battery gets low. ...or the like.