Vintage Tach Collectors Show and Tell

Nothing special but I had not seen one before....any information would be appreciated

 

These are real cool... I happen to have one... will be mounting on the column...

 

I just picked up these two. 8K tachs. I've seen the Dixco's before, but the other looks like it says Pennys Foremost. They look a lot alike. Did Dixco make the Pennys one also? Do these need a transmitter box or are they stand alone?

 

Just picked up a couple of more tachs. First another SUN RC85 with Chrome cup. I think it will clean up. The other looks like a SW 2-5/8" 12K RPM motorcycle tach.

 

E9A3D168-DC2B-4F67-BC49-4CF5CF6DC9F7 by KFC posted Jul 20, 2018 at 3:25 PM

Can any one date this tach for me or have any info, it looks to be a mechanical tach with an electric drive, need to work out if it needs a signal box.

 

You are missing a few parts to make that work. It works off a unit that goes under the distributor cap and you also need the connector cable. All pretty rare. Gary

 

Thanks. That’s a pain I think it’ll just get modern internals

 

Here's a couple of interesting Stewart-Warner mechanical tachs. The first one is a old 5K one that was designed to attach to the steering column. The second one is an 8K one that was one of the "compact" tachs that S/W came out with in the late 1960's. It fits into a hole about a half inch smaller than the standard tach, but was exactly the same, looks wise. The third one is a late 1940's 4.5K (5") Vac-Tach that had a little vacuum gauge included.

 

wow there's a lot of cool tachs here.

the Moroso is a mechanical. the SW came out of motor home with a 440 i gutted, 9 grand seemed a little optimistic

 

Man there were a bunch of Tachs in the swap meet at the Meltdown this past weekend. I don’t know why I didn’t take any pics.

 

I know I am late to the party, but for what it's worth, this was made by Arrow. All Arrow gauges have the arrow head logo. Probably 1970's.
Garpo

 

Anyone have any extra metal extender clips for the Stewart Warner distributor switch (the tan tach generator thing in the photo)?


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I put the guts from a small Bosch Tach (FST7911) in one just recently. It was an easy fit.

 

Have this tach. seems not common. any idea of usage, time. has 1960 in display. don't know if this helps? Offy tach
Friend asked about tach for use on a 64 thunderbolt?. Got me to get it out

 

I've bought several of these vintage Sun Tachs Model CP 7901 off of eBay that do not require a sender and have a simple 4 wire hook up.

Gary

 

I just picked this tach up from a swap today. Im guessing its a marine, or stationary motor tach, but cant figure out the year, or what it might have come on originally.

The front glass is flat, but has a SW wings logo. It also requires a mechanical cable, spinning counter clockwise, and only goes to 5k. The case doesn't have any lighting. Does anyone have more information on this?

 

Dan, do the last two digits stamped on the case read K9? If so, that deciphers to September of 1942. But that couldn't be correct, as I don't think SW didn't start using the winged logo that early. I always thought the winged era was 1948 through 1954. Is there another letter after the 9?

 

There are no other letters or numbers after the 9. I agree that the logo and flat glass goes against all the known information. The mystery goes on....

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I cleaned up the tac that came in my ramp truck project yesterday. It is an in dash model but is clamped to the steering colum with one of the brackets. Looks pretty good, Gary

 

some good looking old tac's here guys, so what would i be lookin for to sit on the column of my 34 coupe and be of about 1950 ish era correct? mild flathead v8

 

5k Sun "Football" tach would be appropriate.

 

thank you sir. what year did the sun football start? i see they are some what common, and you then send it to williams for the upgrade, thanks

 

Part of my collection lives on the dash of the Willys. Jones Motorola.

 

I have just bought these. They were in a home made wooden box with 2 wires coming out with crocodile clips marked ground and distributor. So they must have used it to test 8 cylinder engines that used a distributor and was 6 volts. They are in very good condition having been in the box all this time. The transmitter casing is cast aluminum, which I have never seen before. I have just ordered the Technoversions "black box" because I need 12 volts on 6 cylinder, for my Dodge flathead 6.
Cheers,
Stewart.

 

https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=392461

Here's a link to some historical info on Sun tachs: https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=392461 Williams rebuilt mine a few years ago; they're nice folks to deal with.

 

I used the "football" Sun version to get that same era vibe (not a strict interpretation), but the S/W Wings tach would be appropriate, as well as the later Large Logo version. Both were produced in the 1950's, the Wings being earlier. Both tachs were the same, aside from the logo, featuring curved glass, the Coke bottle pointer & teal colored side light windows. When I read the threads on the quality of the modern stuff, it's apparent that you can't & will never get the beauty & functionality of these gauges.

 

Got to love Smiths chronometric tell tales

 

Hello,

When my brother started racing his new 58 Impala, he wanted a tachometer. We tried several chrome Sun Brand models and they all required mounting on the dash board top or clamping around the steering column. Number 1, my brother did not want anything blocking his vision in front. Plus, he did not want to drill and mount a chrome tach on top of the dash.

We tried to put it on the column, but the moving three speed column was not going to work. Below the dash was ok, but it meant taking your eyes off of the road ahead while shifting, not good for coordination. We even considered mounting it along the roof support above the wind wings facing the driver, but it blocked the front vision with a blob sticking right into your peripheral vision.

We were at our wits end, until one day we were wandering around the Douglas Aircraft Surplus Yard and saw some gauges that had just been thrown in a box. They were black and about 3 inches across. There was no tachometer, but the size of the gauges told us that it was possible to get a smaller tach. Most of the standard chrome ones for sale at Reath Automotive and all of the other speed/accessory shops were the large chrome ones from various makers. In this case, size matters.

One of the sales guys at the aircraft surplus yard said we should check out army surplus stores. On the way home, we stopped at the big army surplus store in lower Bixby Knolls. They had everything from clothes to camping belts, but we had never looked for instruments.


Jnaki

The guy behind the Bixby Knolls-Long Beach Army Surplus Store counter said he had just what we were looking for and that it should fit nicely. He brought out a small black tachometer and sending unit. Everything worked and it even had a small light to light it up at night. It fit inside the palm of our hands and we could clearly see the lettering and numbers. My brother bought it on the spot.

When we got home, we tried to see where the insight viewing line was going to be the best for this small tach. On the left of the Impala dash was covering up too much of the lower mph dash readings. So, the only place was the upper right of the Impala dash pop up. There were screws already in place to keep the shiny trim part in place, so that was the mounting point. The sightline for looking straight had the tach numbers in the direct sight and there was no need to glance over when the numbers and pointer were clearly visible.

The wires were neatly tucked away and all anyone could see was the small black tachometer with bright yellow numbers. It definitely was “one of a kind” as no other cars had a small black tach that had a cool yellow glow as we drove it at night. No sight lines blocked, no gargantuan chrome Sun Tach on the dash, etc…It was all custom and it made the Impala stand out even more.

P.S. In 1963-64, I had some machining done on the axles to accommodate some pristine Buick Skylark wire wheels. That made the Impala a true custom car and it was still fast. We had fun all over So Cal with this look. But, as luck would have it, the summer late night Belmont Shore tragedy struck. Parked in a virtual locked in place spot on a busy street with the front so close to the forward car would be best. We knew that that front car would roll forward in the morning commute. We parked a friend’s car behind to get a tight fit and virtually lock the whole car down.
Thanks, @themoose
The mystery was never solved, except that we think we knew who did the theft. No, break in as a key was used for access. We found the Impala around 2:30 a.m. in a dark deserted park sitting on milk crates. All of the Skylark Wire Wheels were gone and whoever took them, neatly cut the wires off and unscrewed the small black tachometer from the dash. No scratches, no marks and the police did not get any fingerprints anywhere.

But, the dumb clods who stole the wire wheels and small tach forgot to open the trunk, where a pristine 5th Buick Skylark Wire Wheel was sitting in the spare tire wheel well space. Later, selling that one Skylark wheel paid for the original cost of the set. It also paid for 5 new black Buick steel wheels, tires, balancing and alignment. The Impala was sold with the black on black look in the late fall of 1964 to a friend.

 

Digging through my pile of gauges today trying to piece together a set for my current build and found this little 2-1/16" tach.
I had planned on putting it in the firewall of my '27 but it's electronic and the car is running a magneto. Not wanting to use a signal converter it sits on the shelf,
for now anyway..

 

I have a surplus military tach that was used on my Dodge flathead 6 for a while I believe it is a Weston.