Weird factory tach problems....

[4spdragtop]

Ok dad and I finished up putting his dash bezel in and putting the Real Time Engineering(RTE) board in his factory tach on his 67 cuda 273. Got everything all connected and hooked up. Tried to start.....no go...checked for spark out the coil and nothing....weird as dad had it running earlier. What I did was unhook the tach wire that connects to the -ve on the coil and it fired right up. Then checked the tach, which prior to us installing the new board, didnt work properly. Well the tach is now "stuck" at about 4500 rpm and doesnt move, even with the battery cables unhooked. Dads car has the mopar elec ignition, Im not sure if that is causing the issue or not. Before we installed the tach in the bezel I checked for a short to ground on both connections on the back of the tach, and its all good(no continuity between each connector and case). I checked the factory wiring schematic and its done properly. One wire(dark blue) comes from fuse block to a push on style terminal on back of tach, the other wire comes from the -ve on the coil to the bulkhead connector and continues in passenger compartment to a spade terminal on back of tach(grey wire).

Any ideas as to why no start with wire hooked to -ve on coil? Also why is tach now "stuck" on 4500 rpm??

 

[67Dart273]

Damn, that's not good. My Autometer needle stays wherever it was when shut off. That is, if you "blip" it up to 2K or so and grab the key, the needle stays at 2K. But I'm sure that meter movement is not that type, although I could be wrong. Is there only two wires going to the meter from the board?

If you can't get any satisfaction from RTE, and if you want to mail it to me, I can try and check it out. I don't however, have an equivalent meter to hook it to. I'd have to hook it up to a test meter and just see if it responds with RPM, etc.

 

[4spdragtop]

Hey thanks for the offer Del, but the dash bezel is not coming out again until winter to get the am/fm radio fixed and the tach if need be. Here is a link to where the board came from, as well as another link to the install instructions for the board we put in.

http://rt-eng.com/rte/index.php/Main_Page

[ame]http://rt-eng.com/rte/images/c/c7/TachManual67-74_REV13.pdf[/ame]

I double checked the work we did to the tach and it all "looks" good. Thanks!!

 

[67Dart273]

Doesn't look good, Steve. It appears to me the tach meter movement is AFU. It remains to be seen whether it's something you did, or whether the tach board caused it, or maybe the meter after all these years just died.

 

[4spdragtop]

Doesn't look good, Steve. It appears to me the tach meter movement is AFU. It remains to be seen whether it's something you did, or whether the tach board caused it, or maybe the meter after all these years just died.

Weird cuz there was movement when dad first got the car, but wasnt much. Do any companies rebuild the entire tach??

 

[RedFish]

I have to agree with the above. There was more wrong with the tach than just replacing the board would fix.
Did your part vendor advise or instruct bench testing or anything more than just poke their part in there ?

 

[4spdragtop]

I have to agree with the above. There was more wrong with the tach than just replacing the board would fix.
Did your part vendor advise or instruct bench testing or anything more than just poke their part in there ?

Hey Ben, dad got the new board with the car, we installed the board.

 

[RedFish]

Your dad will be tempted to tap on the lens trying to make that needle return. The lens will break away from the bezel too.

 

[cudajim]

It sounds like your problem is with the meter movement, not necessarily the RTE board although it could have a problem too. I may have another meter without a board, I'll have to check.