So my mustang never came with a tach and I wanted one. They are useful for timing your car, help in shifting gears, and plain old look COOL! With that in mind, I went shopping for a tach and found out that they are expensive! I also learned that you can get a cool shift light with the high end tachs. I got lucky and found a Summit 3-1/2" tach with a shift light, and at the time the cost was around $40. Certainly a deal for what I was getting.
It has a nice classic look, an adjustable redline, and a build in adjustable shift light. All in one package. It also includes the mounting bracket and wiring.
The wiring is pretty straight forward. I assume that most tachs are like this but check to be sure.
Colors are as follows:
Green - to the negative on the distributor
Red - to power (with the key on)
White - to dash lighting
Black - to ground
The next hardest thing to do after picking your tach is to find a place to put it. Some popular places to put a tach is on the A-pillar, on the steering column, on the dash, under the dash, and buy the shifter.
I didn't want to put any holes in my dash or my A-pillar. I also wanted to have it where I can see it when I should have my eyes on the road, so under the dash or by my shifter was also out. I asked around on the forums I frequent and got some great suggestions. I ended up doing some thing like FM member 'MustangGeezer' did.
Some popular mounting points
-Under Dash (Stang72)
-Dash Mount (Mustang Geezer)
-Steering Column
CUSTOM MOUNT
I took a piece of scrap sheet metal that I had and cut it to size (about 1" x 2") and cleaned up all the edges. Then I drilled 2 holes for the mounting screws. I then painted it black and let it dry. Screwed the tach to my 'custom mount' with one of the holes that I drilled. Now with my custom mount on the bottom of my tach, it is ready to be attached to my dash. I used the dash speaker grill screw that is closest to the driver to do this. I removed the screw and got a match to it that was slightly longer. Put my custom mount in place with the 2nd hole over the grill screw hole and inserted the screw. I decided that it looks pretty good and then carefully installed the wiring through the speaker grill to the mounting points already discussed above. Don't worry, I currently do not have a speaker in that location.
Do a good job with your wiring. Keep it neat and be sure your connections are solid. It would suck to do all this work and not have it work when you need it to, not to mention having it look like crap.
Don't look too bad there. Easy to see. The gauge was the right price. The install was easy to do and... I can remove it later if I ever decide to go a different way!
Today
