Hi alll
i have purchased a Tacho and was wondering if anyone has installed one themselfs?
if they could give me any tips that would be much appreciated.
also i need to find a postive sourse that is turned on and off with the ignition? i dont have a multimeter on me so i need a bit of a hand with that?
cheers

Green wire to Negative Coil terminal
Red wire to power source which is live when key is in On position (Wire it from the ignition switch)
black or brown wire to earth

Then you will have 2 more wires for the backlight.

Red wire to headlight circut
black wire to earth.

Usually they come with an instructional booklet. If the wire colours are different, just substitute the colours on your tacho (It should have a wiring diagram in the booklet)

Nicko

Cheers Nicko.
i need to extend a few of the wires to reach the coil/battery, will need to use exactly the same size wire?

Just use 12 gauge wire.

You won't need to wire the Tacho directly to the battery. Just to a power source that is live when the ignition is ON. IE: the ignition feed terminal on the ignition switch.

Just be careful of where you run the signal wire from the coil to the tach.
If it ever rubs through and grounds on anything metal the engine will stop.

and don't power the tacho straight from the ignition switch. Always run things from the fused side of the fusebox.

Either have a look at the wiring diagrams for you year here The Samba Beetle wiring page

or if you aren't good at reading wiring diagrams let us know what year Beetle you have and we can tell you the fuse to connect too

Psimitar is right. I should have mentioned. Run an in- line fuse.

Quote:

Originally posted by psimitar and don't power the tacho straight from the ignition switch. Always run things from the fused side of the fusebox. Either have a look at the wiring diagrams for you year here The Samba Beetle wiring page or if you aren't good at reading wiring diagrams let us know what year Beetle you have and we can tell you the fuse to connect too

no I'm sure the reverse power goes to the coil negative

I got the guage it in and works fine
thank you all for your tips !

If you find that your tacho reading is off and/or the needle is a little jumpy, you can wire up a diode in line with the negative wire from the coil (place diode closer to the coil end) to stop the signal rebounding and creating these issues. Worked a treat with mine.

It's just a simple recifier diode, it can go anywhere in the line.

I started out fitting them at the coil too but the harsh enviroment of an engine bay gets to them eventually.
I started fitting them at the tach end and they were fine, no one has reported back any problems yet.

Most tachs these days are designed for a nice clean signal from the ECU not the fluffy one points provide.
An IN4004 diode cleans the signal up nicely.