Any similar tachometer cases/internals?

[skelteanema]

Hi all,

I have the early style tachometer on my S3 Elan. The tacho is hopeless as it is erratic as well as reading much too high. I have bought the Clocks4classic PCB to repair the tacho. However, I am reluctant to completely remove the original internals, cut the wires and drill the housing of the tach, just in case I want to revert back to the original system at some stage.

I was wondering if there was a tacho with a similar case/internals to the early elan that I could use as a donor to put the PCB in, drill the required holes and put the Elan face/bezels on? Any ideas?

Thanks

[Andy8421]

Widely used across all British sportscars of the era. MG, Triumph easiest places to go hunting. I recall the MG Midget was an exact match, others might have slightly different typeface or bezel.

I am not familiar with the clocksforclassics board, the usual board replacement talked about on here is made by Spiyda. I haven't used their product, but I understood it is a 1 for 1 replacement with the existing board - no drilling or messing required.

Might be worth looking at the Spiyda product and sending the clocksforclassics board back rather than fiddling about with a drill.

[ericbushby]

While you have the tachometer out and open, if you just change the two electrolytic smoothing capacitors you may solve the problem much easier.
Once you are there it takes just a few minutes to do. Those capacitors have a life expectancy of maybe twenty years and will cause erratic performance if they are no longer working.
There is a potentiometer on the circuit board for calibration if it still does not read correctly.
Your choice and best of luck.
Eric in Burnley
1967 S3SE DHC

[gherlt]

I have the Spiyda replacement board for many years now and very happy with it.
If originality is important, then I would use Spiyda and afterwards have the old one repaired, or search for a replacement board, in case you want to change back.

[skelteanema]

Thanks for the replies.

I am going to try replacing the caps on the old board to see if that fixes the erratic behaviour.

I still would like to find a identical case/ internals so will look into the other British ones. The MG midget one doesn't look to be the same as it doesn't have the two instrument lights (maybe they were differnt in other models).

I will keep looking.