Has anyone ever taken out the guages in a '58-'62?

[Orange 01 SS]

I did this on my dad's a while back because he had to take the spedometer and tach in for a rebuild. We took them out, had them fixed, put them back, and replaced the tach cable that goes to the transmission under the car.

That job sucked. :crazy

 

[Tom Bryant]

I had to remove my cluster to get the tach repaired in 1971. I think I am still in pain from that job. The problem is that the speedo shop didn't calibrate it correctly so one of there days when I really feel like a little self inflicted torture I'll pull it out again.

Tom

 

[andy60]

Hi,

Sorry, I think you meant to say replace the speedo cable that goes to the trans, the tach cable goes to the gererator.

"and replaced the tach cable that goes to the transmission under the car."

 

[58Mike]

Tom, you might be able to get your speedometer right by changing the driven gear at the transmission. That's still not fun, but it beats taking out the whole cluster again!

- Mike Greene

 

[Tom Bryant]

It's the tach that is off. Reads too fast. I put a FI pulley on the Generator to slow it down some but it's still a few hundred fast. I don't think I have any choice but to take it out again. :cry

Tom

 

[andy60]

Tom,

It sounds like the tach was built for a distributor drive (FI).

Ehen I had my tach rebuilt I had them build it as a generator drive with the high rpm face (FI).

Andy

 

[Tom Bryant]

There was an article in either the Summer '79 or Winter '86 issue of The Restorer on tachs. From that I concluded that the cable speed must have been calibrated wrong. Could also have been that the speedo shop that fixed it put in some wrong parts and that they really didn't know squat about Corvette tachs (even though they said they did).

Before it broke it ran about 200 rpm slower that my Sun tach I used for comparison. All of the pulley numbers were right according to the GM parts book so I just figured that was as good as these things get. The fan belt wasn't the right width so I put on a correct specs belt thinking that it would run higher in the pulley grooves and slow down the cable just a little.

Before I got the chance to compare with the Sun again it broke. I was driving along at a steady speed and the tach needle wrapped around clockwise as far as it would go and stuck there. Too bad that back them we didn't have Roger's and the other shops that specialize in this stuff like we have now.

Instrument panel removal might make a good tech article. I wonder how well that is covered in the ST12.

Tom