Hot Rods Oddball tach have you seen one of these?

So I have been working on this old Lincoln for a friend, and this big old tach was in the trunk. I have never seen one like it; it is electric, has some sort of odometer or hour meter and has a vacuum gauge.

This tach will fit right into the original clock hole in a '48 Lincoln Continental. it has shift point markers and they are not adjustable, so it appears as though they wanted whatever it was monitoring to shift between 1700 and 2800 RPM. I guess actually run between those RPM numbers as in if it gets below 1700 shift down and if it reaches 2800 shift up.

Have you ever seen one like it? Do you care ot offer any idea what it was or its intended use?

Just thought you would be interested.

Oh and by the way if you just want to post a pic ot two of some toehr oddball tach that you happen to know about I will not consider it hijacking the thread. Have at it fellas.

Benno

 

I would say diesel, but they dont have a whole lot of vacuum.

 

Its an electric tach, I had ruled out diesel for that reason. Although most older Diesels were all in by 2800 or less, the narrow power band would suggest diesel. With the hour metter I am thinking industrial or comercial application.

I think it is interesting that it does not have a brand anywhere on it. Most often it has been my experience that gauge companies are pretty proud of their product. Not always but most of the time they will tag it somewhere.
Also pretty cool that it fits in the clock hole in the Lincoln, pretty useless for anything but entertaining the passenger though.

 

Aviation tach/hobbs/vacuum meter? I've driven International trucks that had air brakes and the dash had a tach, hour meter and vacuum gauges. The gauges were all individual tho.

 

Yah definitely for some kind of machine. Maybe a water or concrete pump. those are usually gas. I would think the clock would be more usefull anyways. But when did that stop something cool from happening.

 

One of these bad larrys??

 

Most likely for big gas engine truck,,400 inch +,,,,,,,,,,

 

yea except mine has more hours and a smaller power band.

I have been thinking about finegling this one and if I can figure out how adapting it for a modern big block and putting it in the speedo hole in my '38.

But mostly I figured someone would know about it or want to.

That one is yours?

 

Nope, im just a pic whore...

 

I'm guessing a heavy duty gas engine truck. Benno your gauge has a smaller " spread " in the RPM range, the trans might have had more gears or even a compound trans set-up. Willy's has a larger spread between powerband, maybe not as many gears to change, TR

 

Or maybe a different mill, the big ford (lincoln) truck motors probably had a different power band than say the big GM inline 6.

I am guessing from the notations on the back that it is 6V. So maybe older than '55 for sure. But it wouldn't have been like for a big military type of truck ( Dodge power wagon?) because they were all 24V.

 

Look at the vacuum guage on the pictured tach ... sez "decelerate" on the high end ... I wonder why, what wrong with alot of vacuum?

P&B ... no pic?

 

High vacuum means high BSFC....and lousy mileage....if you have a car with overdrive and a vacuum gage, you can see what I mean.

 

shot in the dark...did it have anything to do with automatic transmissions?

 

When you close the throttle plates, you create the highest vacuum signal. Open the throttle plates fully, and you have a low vacuum signal. This being a very general statement now.TR

 

I think everyone is correct on nthe decelerate on the vac gauge. I think it means that the vehicle is coasting although I am not sure why anyone would feel it necessary to tell that. I mean if you are driving I would think that you would know if you had your foot off the gas.

 

The pictured tach is a Stewart-Warner from the 50/60's. You can adjust the tattle-tails by taking the bezel and glass off. Should be three or four small screws on the sides of the chrome bezel. Then just slide them to the RPMs you want.

 

Alchemy,
Thanks.

So it would use an older S/W control box?

 

My mind dont work like that I was thinking "decelerate" was a command to the driver "Decelerate dumbass or something is gonna break" ... I can see I was wrong.

 

This one is on ebay at $78.77 after seven bids. Auction ends in 3 hrs 10 min. It is 5" in diameter. Has an electrical unit on the back.

 

--------------
Sorta' close....but not quite correct.
Diesels don't control power or speed
by throttling airflow on the intake side,
so they don't just "not have a lot of
vacuum", they don't have *any*
vacuum.

Mart3406
=============

 

THATS funny right thar!

 

I remember a fellow that had one of these in his "competition" car. A '55 Studebaker Champion with a flat head six and overdrive. He competed in Economy runs where you only got like 3 gallons of gas, and tried to go further on that than every body else could. I might be wrong but as I remember, he called it an "economiser gauge" or some such.

 

When found the distributor sender is usually for a Delco. Took one out of a '48 White WB20 ( ? ) years ago. The thing must weigh 3-4 lbs ...

 

Has anyone noticed the pictured tachs go up by 500, but also says "engine revs x1000"? Wouldn't that imply that 3,000 is actually 3,000,000? Doesn't make any kind of sense just thought it was weird...

 

-------
It makes perfect sense. It's a 'factory
tach' out of a captured alien space
craft. I saw warehouses filled with
crates of NOS ones just like it at
"Area 51", the last time I was
there!!!

Mart3406
===============

 

Funny I never paid any attention to that. So the tach is for a big truck powered by an offy?

At first blush I think it would be cool if one could find the proper box to run it on whatever engine. but guessing that it is for a big truck it is probably going to be ptetty hard to find a controller for a V-8. Maybe the best bet is to have it converted.

Interesiting bit of automitive of history, maybe a good desk piece?

 

Not weird at all if you realize that the thing that looks like an odometer is actually counting the total number of engine revolutions (when multiplied by 1000).
Aliens prefer hour meters because the warp core oscillates when in the vacuum of space.

 

R.P.M. = Revolutions Per Millisecond

 

No, it uses a sender that fits under the distributor cap and rotor. Your backside looks like the one pictured in post #21, right? The thick cable uses an extension that leads to the distributor.

The necessary senders are hard to find, especially since they are specific to the particular distributor. And, there are probably 50 tachs left in the world to every sender that survives.

Your best bet is to probably have a place like Classic Instruments convert the tach guts to modern electric. Expensive, but you know it will work. Relying on a 60 year old plastic-housing sender is risky, if you can even find one and afford it.

There were some of the same tach/vacuum gauges made with mechanical tachs, but that doesn't do you any good. They are rare too.