Technical Trying to date and ID a tachometer

I've got a nice tach from a guy that rebuilds gauges for me that I was going to put into my Banger powered Model A as it's already set up for four cylinder to replace the Auto Meter when I have in it now. It's been sitting for a year or so on the Shelf and I just saw it and was wondering about what year you guys think it is or what it even came out of. It kind of looks 60s to me. It's got a little tab on the side that looks like it would lock into some kind of cluster or something any help would be appreciate it thanks

 

60s GM OEM.

 

Man that's what I was thinking but I was wondering what 4 cylinders they had or if my gauge guy just set it up for 4 cylinder somehow. I guess it could have been in a Pontiac four-cylinder half 389

 

ok, I did some searching, early Corvair spyder.

 

Sure enough there it is thank you!

 

Well I may end up giving this to a friend that does corvairs and try and look for something a little older for the model A.

 

Looks like a 63-64 Impala from the factory.

 

not really...they look like this



not this

 

I think your right. Wow 55 hundred red line in a Corvair .

 

I had a '63 Spyder, and it saw 5500 quite often.

 

Corvair was a 6 cylinder,maybe Chevy II?

 

Chevy II never had enough performance to need a tach....

The corvair engine has a very short stroke, tiny valves, etc, so it can spin really fast, which is good, because it needs to spin really fast to make the car go!

 

Yeah I'll have to ask Chuck the guy that does my gauges what he did to make it a 4-cylinder tachometer.

 

There are aftermarket interface boxes.

https://www.pelicanparts.com/More_Info/PELTAV3.htm?pn=PEL-TA-V3

Not too much coin, and require no mods to the tach.

 

Years ago, I picked up an off brand tachometer at a swap meet that was new in the box. It had three resistors on the back, with instructions that read, "for 4 cylinder engines use as is. for 6 cylinder engines, cut off the uppermost resistor. for 8 cylinder engines, cut off the upper AND lower resistor.

 

Tuned properly the turbo 'vair spider would spin until it came apart.
Most of the cars we see with tachs even factory tachs really don't need one but they are "High persormance" LOL

 

lots of older Autometer tachs are similar, they have two looped wires, leave both for 8, cut one for 6, cut both for 4, I think.

There is usually a resistor inside that can be replaced to change the calibration, if there is no provision outside. But you kind of have to know what you're doing, or be a good experimenter.

 

Can always pick up a new tach with chrome bezel, rotate it in housing so it reads 0-6000 for 180 sweep. Then apply whatever face / font / color you want.

Good way to get matching gauges with vintage look if you already have a speedo or others gauges. Graphics arent too hard to do.