I'm finaly finishing up all the tiny details on my 69. After asking a few people how hard this was supposed to be I figured I'd go buy a cable and whip it out in 30 min or so. FOGETABOUTIT whewwww!!! I'm glad I'm done. The whole project (and I call it a project) took about 6 hours. This is not easy and on the PITA scale it is a just below replacing front springs! Well to get to the old cable on the interior side you either have to be 8 years old, the dash has to come out or the seats gotta come out. Since I was eight 35 years ago and i was no way taking off the dash out came the seat. Next the tach end of the cable has a cyptic latch mechanism that if you have never done one before you will never in a bazzillion year figure out. So the next 45 min on the phone with anybody who would talk to me. Even the best attempt at describing it was clear as mud. Finaly drove up to my vette shop and thankfully they had an old tach there so i could see it. Cool I thought home I go to tackle this 2 foot cable again. Reached up under the dash and guess what the spot is so small I couldnt get my fingers in to release the old one. Finnally got a 18" screw driver on the clip and had to yell for my wife to pull on it from the fire wall side we are now well into hour number 2 and all is well :) got the old one out carved out the grommet and now I'm ready to install went smooth until it came to attach it to the distributor :mad the new cable is about an inch longer than the old one and that cable is a bitch to get into the dist. So now out comes the dist cause I want to make sure nothing is stuck in the hole ................... another hour goes by TDC so on .... call my wife to check for timing marks ............ another hour goes by well the cable and dist is in the rest of the stuff I had to remove is on the floor in the garage.

Next project ..put the rest together retime and hope i rember where all the vac lines i had to unplug go :)

From the journals of "A day in the life of a C3 owner" :lol:

 

Yeah, I thought, fix my tach or replace and customize my front nose . . . I decided to take it easy and do the nose!!!!! :lol: :lol:

 

I've replaced the Tach cable in my 70' as well and it was truly a PITA. I didn't have to pull the distributor, but the upside down crammed under the dash cursing thing I do remember. My tach worked for a whole 2 days before the tach cable went again. It's just too much of an (S) bend in the cable to keep it working. I know they make the adapters for this type of problem, but I don't want to shell out the money for one so........NO TACH :smash:

 

Been there also with my 70. I had the dash out because my speedo died. So I decided to go ahead and get it all right while I was there. The PITA factor came into play for me when I was trying to put the speedo/tach assembly back into the car with the cables connected. This doesn`t work. The speedo cable was interfering with one of the dash supports and wouldn`t allow it to go back in correctly. Causing major headaches, and just about as much cussing. :yesnod: :lol:

 

This is not good news :eek: Both the spedo and the tach cable on my '72 are making noise. I sorta thought this would be a afternoon job....but after reading this....and I was eight 40 years ago...it sounds like a weekend project :cry

I love 30 year old vetts :cheers: :cheers:

 

AGREED! The replacement cable is a little over one inch too long. I may elongate the hole in the firewall to take the pressure off the bend.

Chuck

 

About 1 month ago, I replaced my tach with an HEI compatable one. I did the whole job in about 2 hours (and I thought that it took me too long). I do have to admit that I releasing the mechanism that holds the cable was blind (literally) luck. I guess that I'm trying to tell those that may do it that it may not be that bad. Here is what I did:
Pull the steering wheel (and seat if you need the extra clearance)
Remove the screws which hold the dash in.
Pull the dash outward a little being careful not to pull any of the bulbs out.
Lay on your back with your head near the pedals.
Push the metal retaining clip which surrounds the tack cable towards the tach and pull the cable at the same time. It should pop right out.