I have a E 350 with 6.9 L and want to install a tachometer... Any ideas on what brand and how to hook it up??
Thanks....

 

I put in one on an old 5.9 cummins in a Dodge. It was made by Isspro. It worked by magnetic pickup off the front balancer.

 

I am pretty sure that the tach sensor is located on the right of your oil fill tube in front of the engine, if it didnt have a tach to begin with it will just have a bolt otherwise it will have a bolt with 2 wires comming out of it. You might have to buy that sensor.

Brad

 

For a tach in my 86 I went to a salvage yard and bought an insturment cluster that had a tach in it. Pulled the speedo out of my cluster and put in the new one. Plugged the cluster into the existing wiring harness. Then I bought the tach sensor for Ford and installed it in my pump drive cover. The wires to hook it up to were laying there by the injection pump.
Cost for the insturment cluster was 50 dollars.
Cost for the tach sensor was about 52 dollars.
About three hours taking dash apart, installing everything, and reassembling the dash.

Looks like it came from the factory with a tach now.

The reason for the entire insturment cluster is the printed circuit on the back of the cluster does not have the tach circuit if your cluster does not have one. The truck harness does have the tach wires though, they run right to the plug connector that plugs into the cluster and are laying out on the intake close to the injection pump for the other end.

 

Dave,
I was at my favorite recycler today a got the instrument cluster out of an '85 for my '84. I wanted the tach. I didn't look real close, but does the speedometer come out of the cluster? My speedo. reads something like 06250 and the one I got today reads like 26555. So there's a difference of 20,000 miles registering. However, the '85 has a trip meter. The '84 doesn't. I was thinking just clean and install the entire cluster from the '85 for that feature and the tach. I'd just have to adjust my "thinking" on the odometer one time, and be done with it

Did all oil fill tubes have an access hole for the sensor? On the truck I was scrounging from the engine was gone, so I'll have to find those parts. Will the wire I need be located by the IP with a connector of some kind on it? Thanks.

 

Here is a pic of the tach sensor and the tach wire plug.



Hope this helps you find yours on the E series.

 

Dave,
Thanks for the help. I'll look for the wiring tomorrow. I'm also looking for the IP cover housing for the sensor. I'll let you know what I find.

 

Where the zip tie is around the wire harness and tach connector is about the end of the two pieces. Everything right of the zip tie is on the sensor. The piece you are looking for is everything left of the zip tie. Mine was laying down in the intake manifold pan under the IP.

You should see a plug in the IP drive gear cover where the tach sensor goes.

If you are a brave person you can pull the odometer with trip meter out of the cluster. When it is out go to a place with good lighting and look at the odometer wheels. You will see the numbers and some little flippy things that stop the numbers in the right place. Pull the pin out of the odometer wheels, CAREFULLY, and you can reset the new odometer to the correct milage for your truck. It is a PITA kind of thing to do but it can be done. I also had a speedo with the trip meter in the cluster I bought. I also thought that would be kinda nice to have, since I already bought it. I use my truck for business and wanted to keep the milage right on the odometer. Figured I would try it, if I blew it I still had the original to reinstall.

The tiny little flippy things are the hard part. They are what makes the numbers stop in the right place on the 1, 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000 wheels. If you get them out of whack it will either roll up to far or not far enough.

 

I don't have the correct cover for a tach sensor. I'm still looking for one.

I think I'll just use the complete inst. cluster. These speedos don't really matter much anyways since they don't register beyone 99,999. Once I change oil once and get the new number logged in, it doesn't matter if it has 06255 miles or 28,333 miles. They're just reference numbers. Now if it registered another digit it might be worth changing!

 

OK, but I have never seen one that did not have the plug in it, 6.9 or 7.3.

I have seen many that did not have the sensor, but they always had the plug in the hole.

 

One other thing, make sure you got a diesel tach. The gasser tachs (reads 0-6000 rpm's) wont work. You need the diesel tach that reads 0-3000 RPM's (or is it 0-4000 RPM's?)

 

I've got the diesel tach. I think it red lines at 3500, maybe goes to 4000.

But Dave, I went out to look again. NO threaded plug!!

 

When it is installed it looks more like a big oil drain plug. For that hole to not be there is a new one on me.
Did you find the wire connector?

 

No wire connector, no place for sensor!!

In the '84 shop manual page 33-04-1 shows tach, but not for diesel, only gas. Maybe a tach wasn't an option in 1984! So no need to have the sensor plug in IP cover.

 

By the way, does anyone have a stock tach? I need one. The PO put a gasser cluster in my truck.