My tach is pegged out backward. I had to replace a wire from the tach to the dist. mine shorted out. now I don't have a tach was working fine unil this happened. Any help !

Thanks
lee

Oh yea, 1972
How can I post a pic ?

1972 ??

i thought 72 still had a tach drive gear..

maybe im smoking crack but im pretty sure 72 shouldnt have an electric tach.

have you converted it to hei ? and changed the tach out..

Ben your right. 72 was a cable tach.

What is in the car?

I didn't change it out but I couldn't find a cable running anywhere. I will do a double check. This car is a '72 frame with a '80 body. as far as I know and can find out I have the original dash and shifter. I have some pics but I don't know how to attach them. How can I post a pic ?

as for posting pic

goto support/comments forum... there are a few locked threads telling you how to do that.

as for distributor.. it would be best to get us a pic..

a 72 should have a gear driven cable tach.

and 80 will have an electrical..

is your coil on the distributor cap or is it a seperate cylinder mounted on the intake.

it really sounds like you have a strange 72/80 hybrid..
it also sounds like you have an 80 tach and distributor

It appears to be that if you replaced a wire between the distributor and the tach, you have an elctrical tach run off what I assume is an HEI distributor. You may have blown the printed circuit board connected to the back of the actual guage. Was the wire you replaced going into the dist cap? If you used too large a guage of wire, that could have easily over-juiced the PC board. Also, is there a tach filter between the wiring harness and the connection to the distributor? It looks like a large radio supressor.

Let us know what you find.

My guess is you have the newer distributor and tach as well.

But I have to make a correction. Yes too much amperage will cause anything to burn out. But using a larger wire will not.

If a wire is too small it can't handle the amperage going through it an it will burn up. But the current through a wire is not determined by the wire, unless it's a resistance wire.

What determines the flow, assuming the wire is large enough, is the device drawing the current. If it pulls 1 amp, it is going to pull 1 amp on a small, medium, large, or welding cable wire. Larger wire will not increase amp flow.

So why use smaller wires for smaller circuits? It's less bulky, less expensive, and lighter weight. All 3 are very important in a car.