Competition Autometer Tach Instal?

[RyanB]

Hey all- Just picked up a 5" Autometer Diesel tach and just trying to figure out what most guys do for the tach pickup on these things.



I am running a 24valve Fluidamner on my 12valve. My ballancer doesn't have groves and after calling Fluidamner today I found out not to cut anything in deeper than . 110 thou or I will start to hit the fluid! AutoMeter recomends the groves to be 3/16" deep so that puts the groves out of the question for this. They recomend going with 1/4" threaded steel stock but thats not going to work either seeing I can only tap down just under 1/8".



Now I have heard of guys using magnets but after talking to AutoMeter they don't recomend them and have also heard of guys tig welding 1/4" bar stock.



Anyone have any idea's on this? I would like to get the balancer back on the engine before I put the rest of the truck back together.



Thanks in advance... Ryan

 

[JFaughn]

Interesting problem , it would seem that the manufactures should have had this figured out before selling , I want to see what comes of this .
Is there a brand of tack that is optical , so a reflective tape could be used ?

 

[Highfinance97]

Ryan I think i showed this to you before but if not here is what i did



fluid-damper-tach-install





Michael

 

[RyanB]

Ryan I think i showed this to you before but if not here is what i did



fluid-damper-tach-install





Michael

Micheal- yeah you did show me your setup. My problem is I am running a 24valve and from the sounds of it directly from Fluidamer there is only about 1/8" of material (steel) before you hit the fluid inner ring.



Ryan

 

[PSU-CE]

Ryan, I cut off some small round bolt heads (1/4" diameter head) and stuck them to my Fluidamper using JB Weld. It has been working great so far, but I don't know how long they will hold. :-laf

 

[RyanB]

I dug a little deeper into this last night and after talking to Curt Haisley he said they use magnets with the same tach so I am going to try that. I am going to take the balancer to a buddy with a mill and get him to cut . 50thou deep by 1/2" diameter hole into and then just pop the magnets into it without glue. They hold like crazy so if they hold on at idle and everything works then I will glue them in. If it doesn't work with the magnets I am going to get 1/2" round stock cut to fit in the holes and stick the 3/16's above the surface that autometer recomends.



I will keep you all updated.



Ryan

 

[RyanB]

I took a few pics of what I had done to the 24 valve Fluidamper today just for anyone looking to do this in the future. I used a mill and drilled 4 equally spaced (7 5/8" center to center) 1/2" holes that were milled . 60 thou deep. I then cleaned everything with some brake cleaner and mixed up a good batch of JB Weld:-laf I filled each hole with JB and then dropped the magnets in which pushed out the access JB which I then just wipped off. Tomorrow I will be installing the actual tach and see how it goes.



Here are some pics.



RyanB

 

[Graphic man]

good info Ryan,



i also want to add a tach next year.

 

[wildmanben]

looks good, let us know how it works.

 

[RyanB]

Tuesday evening I finally got the engine back up and running after months of modifications! I made a custom bracket and I will post some pics tonight of what I did. When I first fired it up I was having some issues with the RPM being almost 1000 more than it actually was but after pulling the pickup off the bracket and holding it by hand at different distances from the balancer I realized that with going with magnets you have to have the pickup over 1/4" inch away and not to 1/16-1/8" ince that autometer recomends.



It is working great now and the magnets seem to hold up well. Like I said above... I will post the final pics tonight.



Thanks again for all the help. . RyanB