Gas tach on a diesel engine

[DPinkston]

I got my gas engine tach hooked up and working on my truck tonight. I bolted two small metal tabs 180 apart on my balancer and fabbed a bracket to mount a 3 wire prox to read the tabs. One wire to ground, one to 12v, the other to the tach. Set the tach on 4 cylinder. Works like a charm so far. I am not sure what the prox is rated for, we use both 120VAC and 12-24VDC at work and there is no tag or part number on the prox. It wasn't a 5 finger discount either, it was in the scrap pile. The tach I am using now is an 8000rpm Sunpro, but I have a 3 3/8" 4,000rpm Isspro I will be mounting as soon as I get a cup for it. 8K is kinda pointless on a diesel.

Danny

 

[JSpecht]

I got my gas engine tach hooked up and working on my truck tonight. I bolted two small metal tabs 180 apart on my balancer and fabbed a bracket to mount a 3 wire prox to read the tabs. One wire to ground, one to 12v, the other to the tach. Set the tach on 4 cylinder. Works like a charm so far. I am not sure what the prox is rated for, we use both 120VAC and 12-24VDC at work and there is no tag or part number on the prox. It wasn't a 5 finger discount either, it was in the scrap pile. The tach I am using now is an 8000rpm Sunpro, but I have a 3 3/8" 4,000rpm Isspro I will be mounting as soon as I get a cup for it. 8K is kinda pointless on a diesel.

Danny

So how is the conversion working ?? good?? as forthe tach what the hell is a 3 wire prox and what do they cost

 

[rfull]

98 12v uses 1 too



factory deal looks like

 

[DPinkston]

So how is the conversion working ?? good?? as forthe tach what the hell is a 3 wire prox and what do they cost

3 Wire prox AKA Proximity switch, Hall effect, or magnetic pickup. When it detects metal it closes a circuit. It is taking the place of the ignition which normally runs the tach in a gas engine. I'm not sure what they cost, but I'll try to find out for you. The 94-98. 4 Dodge Cummins does have a magnetic pickup (maybe later ones too) but it is designed to run off of 5 volts from the computer.

So far the conversion is great. No problems to speak of except a weak clutch, and the engine is stock. Mileage is a little low at 16 but hopefully will improve when I get my pump timed.

Danny

 

[JSpecht]

3 Wire prox AKA Proximity switch, Hall effect, or magnetic pickup. When it detects metal it closes a circuit. It is taking the place of the ignition which normally runs the tach in a gas engine. I'm not sure what they cost, but I'll try to find out for you. The 94-98. 4 Dodge Cummins does have a magnetic pickup (maybe later ones too) but it is designed to run off of 5 volts from the computer.

So far the conversion is great. No problems to speak of except a weak clutch, and the engine is stock. Mileage is a little low at 16 but hopefully will improve when I get my pump timed.

Danny

What kind of clutch?????

 

[DPinkston]

What kind of clutch?????

A new Ebay special supposedly good to 150ft/lb over stock. It chattered quite a bit taking off when pulling a 12,000lb load. I am gonna make do with it for now because I rarely tow anything. Empty it works fine.

Danny

 

[JSpecht]

A new Ebay special supposedly good to 150ft/lb over stock. It chattered quite a bit taking off when pulling a 12,000lb load. I am gonna make do with it for now because I rarely tow anything. Empty it works fine.

Danny

Whats the name brand ? still undecided on a clutch! hear good andbad about all differant clutch brands just

 

[JSpecht]

A new Ebay special supposedly good to 150ft/lb over stock. It chattered quite a bit taking off when pulling a 12,000lb load. I am gonna make do with it for now because I rarely tow anything. Empty it works fine.

Danny

Whats the name brand ? still undecided on a clutch! hear good and bad about all different clutch brands just

 

[DPinkston]

Whats the name brand ? still undecided on a clutch! hear good and bad about all different clutch brands just

It's called New Generation. It's supposed to be a LUK Pro Gold repackaged, but I don't think so.

Danny

 

[blkdragon]

do you have any pics of this setup?

 

[DPinkston]

do you have any pics of this setup?

I'll try to take a pic tonight. Not much to see really. After 2 weeks of trouble free operation the tach started acting up yesterday and this morning. It works fine until I have driven it about 18 miles then starts misbehaving. Maybe that's why this prox was in the scrap bin? Or it could be rated for AC and the DC is frying it. It could also be that it's not rated for use in damp environments, and God knows it's been damp around here lately. I'll have to check the Banner catalog to see if I can find a DC rated weatherproof replacement.

Danny

 

[DPinkston]

I can't post a pic because I get an error telling me it's too large. It's the smallest my camera will take and I don't the the ability to crop. If anyone wants to see this setup you can PM me your email address and I'll send it to you that way.

It has been unseasonably warm here for the last few days. I noticed today that the tach worked until the engine temp got above 165 or so then it started acting up and quit. Looking at specs for similar proxes made me think it may be too close to the tabs it is supposed to read and after reaching a certain temperature it was reading the damper as well as the tabs. I moved it further away from the damper tonight and let the engine reach 180 degrees and it didn't miss a beat. Hopefully that fixed the problem.

Danny

 

[Philip]

You can crop the pic's down to size in the Paint program in Windows. Go start>program>accessories>Paint.



When you get the Paint program open. Click on the "File" button then go to "Open". Find the location of the pic on your computer. After you have the pic open in Paint. Then click on "Image" then "attributes" . Set width and height to about 300 x 300. Then save to a folder somewhere of you choosing. Then attach here as you see fit.

 

[DPinkston]

I'm working with Windows 98. My computer crashed and I am borrowing one. In order to work in Paint I have to convert the image to a bitmap. I cropped it in Paint to the size specified but then I can't convert it back to a jpeg. It then exceeds the size limit for bitmaps. I'll email the pic to my work computer and do it there.

Danny

 

[DPinkston]

Hopefully you will see the pic now. Not much to look at. It takes the place of the factory sensor. I fabbed a pointer on the front of the new sensor bracket to use as my TDC indicator.

Danny