Everything works but the tach. Obviously 78 Brats did not come with a tach. So I need to know what do I need to hook up to make the tach work?

My '78 brat came with a tach, but has never worked. I will be watching this thread to see what you come up with. Thanks, dp.

Everything works but the tach. Obviously 78 Brats did not come with a tach. So I need to know what do I need to hook up to make the tach work?

my 79 has a working tach... uf i have time i'll have a look...

my 79 has a working tach....probably the only thing consistantly working on the whole car.

 

if it's not figured out by this weekend i'll give it some investigation for you

My 81 didn't have a tach, but I canabalised one from a toyota celica to work.

All I know is that this one picks up off the coil, has a earth and 12v+.

I guess they could be similar?

You will need to run a wire to the + coil. Attach it to the dangling lead on the back of the cluster. That's it. The 78 did not have the wire in the harness.

Well, I tried doing what you said Todd but it just would not work. If I kept just bumping the wire from the coil and the one on the gagues together the tach would jump around but still not be consistent. But when I hooked the 2 together nothing! Maybe the tach is bad.

Did you have the other 2 round plugs plugged into the cluster? It needs to be all connected to complete the circuit.

I took a 1981 gauge cluster and stuck it in my 78 brat. I hooked a wire from the coil to the back of the dash. The tach worked great and so did everything else. But the funny thing was, when ever I put it in 4WD the engine would die. I never figured out why. So I got another gauge cluster from a 78 with a tach and hooked it up with no problems. I guess in 81 they wired something differently in the dash. Or maybe it was just me.

I have it all hooked up. Everything else works in the instrument cluster. Lights fuel, temp, Speedo, signals, everything. Just not the tach. It is not like these are easy to find. It took me a year and a half to find this one. I suppose if I find the patience to try again I might try and look it over again. If not I guess it will be just like before. No tach. That part kind of stinks:mad: Thanks for your help though.

Hmm....I'll look at mine again. My 78 and 79 wagons didn't have a tach either. I just looked at the diagram, found it was just one wire and that was it.....it worked for me.

 

Your tach may bad, but I have nevr ran across one that doesn't work.

This may be a long shot but could there be a problem with the coil?