Broken Tach

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Aug 6, 2006 | 03:05 PM

mn_vette

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Melting Slicks

Joined: Jan 2002

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From: Jackson MI

Broken Tach

Ok, this is really wierd. I did a WOT blast down a two lane road and when I hit the top of second get I watched my tach just drop to zero and the car died. I popped the clutch to try to get it to start and the engine would turn but nothing fired and the tach didn't move from zero when I did that. I opened the hood and wiggled the wires on the ignition coil and I got the car to start, but the tach still stays at zero.

When I got home I noticed that when the car is shut off the tach is well below zero almost touching the plastic lense on the bottom of the gauge cluster, but once I turned the key to the on position it popped up to zero, but didn't move past that at all.

Is this a gauge cluster problem or could it be a wiring problem somewhere. If anybody has any suggestions I'd appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Aug 7, 2006 | 11:17 PM

mn_vette

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Melting Slicks

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From: Jackson MI

nobody has any comments at all????

Aug 7, 2006 | 11:33 PM

kittmaster

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Joined: Oct 2002

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From: RI

use a scan tool to see if the ECM is seeing a tach signal. It may be the tach itself. Although you say it powers to 0, but I would start there

Aug 8, 2006 | 11:57 AM

byebyeL98

Safety Car

Joined: Sep 2003

Posts: 3,599

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From: Orange County NY

St. Jude Donor '10-'11-'12-'13

I had the EXACT same thing happen to me two weeks ago in my 1992 Acura Integra pulling out of the train station. After 2 hours, I went back to the car to try starting it up and it actually started, so I drove it home. I was almost hoping it would happen again so I could test the Igniter (like our ignition modules) and the Ignition Coil.

Needless to say, it didn't happen again, but the concensus on the forum was that it was one of those two parts, so I replaced them both (I know, I know!). The car has 155,000 miles, both parts were original, so I figured what the heck.

It's been fine ever since...

Aug 8, 2006 | 06:53 PM

mn_vette

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Melting Slicks

Joined: Jan 2002

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From: Jackson MI

Well, right now, the car is running fine. I ended up getting some kind of splashing of oil onto my ignition coil, that's why the car died. That's been fixed, now I'm still stuck with a broken tach. Do I just replace the entire gauge cluster, or is there a fix for just the tach??

Aug 8, 2006 | 07:04 PM

ittlfly

Safety Car

Joined: Feb 2002

Posts: 4,212

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From: Sun City West Az

You can try these folks for factory service.

http://www.sotelectronics.com/

Aug 8, 2006 | 07:50 PM

zr1fred

Race Director

Joined: May 2006

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From: Phoenix Arizona

It likely is not your tach (guage). I'd guess ignition module, wiring in that order. Your coil is not leaking is it?

Aug 8, 2006 | 11:53 PM

mn_vette

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Melting Slicks

Joined: Jan 2002

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From: Jackson MI

Well, guys my car pulled a F.O.R.D. today, Found On Road Dead. Guess what, ignition problem. So after the nice tow home I dug into for about 2 minutes. The car was running great and just stopped. I'm running a Gen7 with a dual sync distributor, I guess I should have mentioned that in my first post. The distributor seems to be dead. There are two led that should flash when the car is turned over and I get a blip when I first start and then nothing. So either I don't have enough power to run the electronics in the distributor(but enough to turn the engine over, not likely) or my distributor is hosed again. I'll talk to the Accel tech line in the morning and hopefully this will fix my tach problem.