Im sure this has been covered 100 times before but I believe my situation is a tad bit different and I could use your guys' help.

I hooked up my tach much like the how to article of hooking up a tachometer says too. However I am receiving no signal. I cut into the tan and yellow stripe wire on the back of the gauge cluster as per instructions..

I am also wondering what wire I plug into to get the tach to light up.. I read that I splice into the illumination wire. So which one is it and how do I exactly splice into it?

So what am I missing or what have I done wrong?

I was able to start the engine, lights all seem to work so I know I didn't cut off something fatal. I didn't get to see if the speedometer was affected but I doubt it is... much less any gauge..

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Are you talking about a stock guage cluster or aftermarket tach?

 

Aftermarket... Sorry forgot to mention that..

and also not sure if i mentioned, i hooked the power and ground up to the cigarette lighter's power and ground..

 

The tan/yellow is the correct wire for the tach signal and any good chassis ground under the dash should be OK.

I wouldn't wire the tach positive to the lighter because the lighter is hot even when the engine is off. A better choice would be a wire that is hot in Start and Run. A possibility could be any one of the three red/yellow wires at the back of the instrument cluster.

The dimmable instrument lights are on a light blue/red wire. You can tap into it at a number of places including the radio harness, HVAC control panel or cluster.

 

Okay so this raises a few questions for me.

1. If I tap into the light blue/red wire for illumination, how do I make sure I still will have my gauges light up... Can I just use a cap and put the tach illumination wire, and the two cut ends of the gauge wire and put them all in the cap?

2. Can I use the cigarette lighter ground as my ground? Its grounded to itself and looks like a decent ground?

 

1. Yes, you want to add the tach illumunation wire as a branch to the existing illumination circuit. You could use a tap connector (Scotch-lok), crimp cap, solder/tape or something similar.

2. The cigarette lighter ground should be OK.

 

Thanks. That helps.

Heres another thing.. I used a volt meter on the tan/yellow wire cable that should be for the tach, however it is not changing voltage at all even when the engine is on/revved...

Im not really sure whats going on with the tach signal wire? Should I look to another color wire behind the cluster or perhaps in the engine area..?

 

It's the same tan/yellow wire all the way from the PCM to the cluster, doesn't matter where you tap it. The tach operates by a change in frequency not a change in voltage, so you won't see much change in the displayed voltage level as the RPM varies.