Hand held Tach

[wrc3]

My dad has a hand held tach that he lost the directions for. Does anyone know how these hook up to get a reading? It only has two wires coming out one black, one red. I figure the black is the ground and the red attaches somewhere to the distributor, but where? Any help is appreciated.

 

[69MyWay]

You should have a 12 volt power, a ground, and a signal wire from the distributor, unless it is battery operated, but then you would not need the ground. Look at it again and see if you are missing a wire somewhere.

 

[JohnZ]

It's a tach/dwell meter - the red wire goes to the (-) coil terminal (where the wire from the distributor connects), and the black wire goes to ground. It should have a selector switch on it for "Tach" or "Dwell", and should have another selector switch on it for the number of cylinders.

 

[69MyWay]

It's a tach/dwell meter - the red wire goes to the (-) coil terminal (where the wire from the distributor connects), and the black wire goes to ground. It should have a selector switch on it for "Tach" or "Dwell", and should have another selector switch on it for the number of cylinders.

Doh! I think you are right.

I have not seen one of those in so long that I forgot about them. Plus, I never really heard of a hand held tach, but thought maybe somebody had rigged it up from a standard stationary one for diagnostics when working under the hood.


Good call!

 

[wrc3]

Thanks

Ya it is a hand held tach/dwell for diagnostics and since i am doing the work myself it makes it easier to get a reading right there. I rebuilt the carb and now I am just tuning it along with getting the timing correct.

B

 

[JohnZ]

Doh! I think you are right.

I have not seen one of those in so long that I forgot about them. Plus, I never really heard of a hand held tach, but thought maybe somebody had rigged it up from a standard stationary one for diagnostics when working under the hood.


Good call!

I still have (and use regularly) the one I bought over 30 years ago when you could buy them everywhere; they're harder to find these days, since points disappeared over 25 years ago :eyerole

 

[resto75]

Yeah I have one too,,,Good old Sears