Hi,
I meant to reply to this one yesterday... got sidetracked. Either that or
I'm ADHD. What were we talking about?
I have Mallory distributors in two TR6's. The model from Mallory hasn't
had a mechanical tach drive for quite some time, probably 20 years or so.
At any rate, I looked into "solutions" a while back and what I found was:
1. you can convert your Smiths tach to electrical. At least one place does
this: APT Instruments in WI (I think), aka www.gaugeguys.com. They charge
about $200 for the job, but your instrument comes back almost perfect. As
we say in New England, they did a "wicked good job".
2. you can buy a racer-boy electric tach from $15 (or less if you go used)
up to "the sky is the limit". More money does not necessarily equate to
better for a bunch of reasons, but if you shop around you can find
something reasonable (like no more than 8000 RPMs indicated and so forth).
Some of the "classic" lines look okay in TR6, but that's a subjective
preference.
3. you can buy real race-quality mechanical units, but most of them drive
from the cam so you'd have to modify the front engine cover for one of
these (like Jones in the Pegasus catalog). These are "really nice" tachs,
but probably not cost-justified (think more than $400 installed).
But the real answer depends on what you're looking for. If you just want
something that moves when the thingie in front goes zoomazooma, then opt
for the $15 solution. If you really want to know how many revs the mill
was turning when the crank broke - spend the money and get a tach with
replay or memory.
:-)
For reference, I have a $25 Sun 8000 rpm tach on the race car. I really
wanted a memory recall, so I spent another $50 or so and bought a recall
unit (that's yet to be installed after 5 years, but that's another story).
On the street car I converted using APT Instruments. They do nove work and
the turnaround was pretty quick, under 7 days door-to-door. I've have some
probs with the conversion, but I'm 99% sure they're all of my doing. Just
for reference, I'm pretty sure that all APT Instr. does is pull the guts
from a Smiths electric tach that they sell new (it's smaller than our
tachs), pull the needle, unscrew the works and swap over to the TR6
"face". If you study tachs closely, you'll see that the Smiths bolt
pattern is the same for the large and small tachs.
Oh well, enough for now. What were we talking about?
rml
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Bob Lang Triumph TR6!! | This space for rent
2009 NER Solo Chair |
Voice:617-253-7438 | Cell: 339-927-4489
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