I want to put in a factory Buick console tachometer in my 1965 Skylark... The car did not come from the factory with a tach, just the delete plate. I know the tach connection from the console wiring harness is the brown wire... The brown wire is supposed to run through the fuse box, come out on the otherside of the fire wall and connect to the negative side of the coil....My brown wire does not come out through the fire wall.... Refer to page 10-5 in the 65 Gran Sport Service Manual... How do I hook up this tach? Can I hook it up in a way different than the factory?
The brown wire is supposed to come out here on the firewall connection....Pg. 10-5 of 65 Gran Sport service manual..... PLEASE HELP
Dan, I am 80% sure that the brown wire from the tach to the coil that you are looking for was installed along with the tachometer and was not installed as part of the wiring harness from the factory. It would have went through the same grommet as the red wire shown in your picture. I will look and see if I can confirm it tomorrow. HTH
my 1965 Skylark Service manual shows a blue wire, not brown. It might be different in the Gran Sport (supplement manual). Regardless, my service manual pretty-much shows the wire running through the firewall grommet I mentioned before and it then follows the rest of the wiring harness to the coil.
I just got brand new wire harness' for my `66 GS and the brown tach wire is part of the headlight harness, and the brown goes over to the coil. The wire is part of the firewall plug that all of the other wires are in, (I can provide which terminal if necessary). it does not got through the firewall seperately. So there should be a set of wires that goes to the center console off of the dash harness, that will have the wires for the tach, the neutral safety switch, and to light the shifter and storage compartment as well as the light in the back of the console. If the car was a column shift, I don't think it had the harness. If you need to run a tach wire seperately, you can do it stealthy by attaching it to the wire harness along the fire wall then bring it down near the junction block, there is a round plastic plug in the fire wall (just outboard of the park brake attaching bolts) and you can run it through there, and no one would detect that it isn't part of the harness. I'm currently in the middle of all of this myself. Dave
Dave- Knowing which terminal it is would help me out... But if you look at my firewall harness connection, some of the terminals do not have wires, and have been "weatherproofed" (from the factory?) with some type of coating... Let me know... Thanks
Dave, the diagram I looked at was for the under-dash mounting (only thing I could find), so that explains the difference. Sorry I wasn't more help.
The light harness that I have is for the `66 GS. The tach (brown) wire is at the #20 pin. The light harness is the outboard block of wires. The #20 pin is the lowest pin of the outboard row. When I compare the schematic to the NON GS car that pin is shown to have a purple wire that goes to the left turn signal. I could not find a tach wire for the non GS car in the diagram. Dave
I can't help with the wiring, but I believe the rubber coating on the wires is brushable/liquid elecltrical tape. I've seen it at Napa I believe.
Thanks for the info everyone... So how should I connect the tach? Is there a way to do it different than stock? (If so, where would the 12v connect to?_
Dan,i had the same problem as you so this is what i did,i ran my own wire from the tach straight to the coil and it works fine,give it a shot. Thanks
So the connection is not like a modern tach? Because a modern tach has 3 wires: a ground, 12v, and, neg coil wire.
No its totally different,the only thing you need to hook up is to run a wire from the back of the hook up of the tach to the coil,and just let it ground out itself on the console and your good to go. Thanks
