Tach install?

[bobstad]

I put this thread into the repair/self-help forum recently, but thought I would add a reference in this form, since maybe somebody here could help? [http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=31240]

What has me all discouraged is how to get inside the dash behind the instrument cluster, to make a solid attachment on the right side of the hood next to the dash, where I want to mount the tach. My next step from here, is to add a post to the interiors forum too.

I'm still hanging tough doing anything else though there seem to be some good suggestions, until I figure out how to mount the tach itself.

I have been driving lots with very heavy loads, where having to shift often determines the next few miles or at least hundreds of yards performance depending on whether I drop down a gear or stay with the revs up to the crest of a grade.

[deathegg]

I'm not sure I understand where you want to place the tach? You mention the "right side of the hood..." , does this mean you want to mount it on the passenger side of the dash??

[bobstad]

Just over there a little, and don't fidget so much!

I'm not sure I understand where you want to place the tach? You mention the "right side of the hood..." , does this mean you want to mount it on the passenger side of the dash??

The instrument cluster side where the temperature gauge is, except on the outside right side of the cowl/hood part of the dashboard, which shields the gauges and speedometer/odometer from the sunlight. The padded surface which is just above the flat top surface of the dash a person can set things on.*

Another way is to say almost directly above the tape/radio & heater controls; perched on the outside, right of the instrument cluster's surround. The tach mount would be at close to a ninety degree angle, though not quite. Just to the left of the center of the car, as for instance defined by the gear shift.

*Amazingly user friendly, yet entirely rare in other cars.

p. s. The RITE-AID here has a cheapie MAC compatible computer camera with 4x telephoto which has been in their "sale" bin a few months, I'm waiting to see put out for half their discount price. This would be great for these type instances now!

[deathegg]

Bob, something like my tach setup in the DeathEgg?

[freshtiva]

I love the first pic of the "chevy" festiva with the load on. Ever consider a factory tach ?

[bobstad]

Dashingly...

Bob, something like my tach setup in the DeathEgg?

Getting pretty warm!

I thought I'd attach the mount just to the left, on the side of the instrument cluster surround; to save much coveted space on the flat top of the dash, also to put my tach a little higher up and closer to me. There are some velcro attaches on the dash for the CD player, which is powered off the cigarette lighter with a GROCERY OUTLET converter to play through the radio's FM channels.

Interestingly Freshtiva, I had a chance at a factory tach at John's Wrecking in Eureka; but, then I was unsure if the thing could work in the '91; which would've cost me $50 plus another $50 for the rest of the instruments and everything else behind the clear plastic. Just that much bread kept me from seeking further, but now I've spent the same if less valuable 'cause of inflation $100, on the Auto-Meter tach.

Sort of a typical call though for those times, where I guess food stamps do make a person more thrifty or something? My income in California was a couple hundred a month more than here in Washington, but with all the "perks" I spend less here than there, or save more?

Maybe simply my friend Sky has less opportunity to talk me into her frequently spendy schemes since about seven hundred miles distant now; whose getting me to take her and four year old son Blue to a two-day's music fest of world beat/reggae music east of Lake Mendicino on California state route 20, which got cancelled the second day Sunday September 10th, 2001; is how my car became "The FestivaL Car."

Since after leaving them off a day earlier than planned; after spending our music festival-less afternoon with a party of impromptu swimmers at a hole alongside the return route, with a rope swing into the creek: Feeling lonely I guess, I left my radio playing all night for the first time since the late sixties in high school; waking up to Amy Goodman and Dennis Bernstein on the same show on KMUD-FM out of Redway, CA talking excitedly together, which was pretty odd since she is out of WBAI in NYC and Bernstein KPFA in Berkeley. Then of course my dawning consciousness coming with the actual dawn more or less, about the events of that morning's news items everyone was stunned with.

Sky "Katherine" Ballard is a funny character now thirty-three or thirty-four, an "artist and genius" with similar spinal disease problems to me who seems normal at first glance also: An ex "deadhead" follower of THE GRATEFUL DEAD whose MANIC boy Blue Ballard was conceived in the parking lot behind Spokane's HOME DEPOT.

Interestingly Blue is someone that July of '99 when we'd met along with her boyfriend Roger who'd met them on the Arcata, CA city plaza when she was carrying her Bluez: Who not even a year old, traveling in the Festiva to Berkeley that same month for demonstrations and protesting at KPFA-FM during "The Pacifica Crisis," had become amazingly attached to listening to the LIVE AT THE ZOO cassette tape of friend Bert Wilson's great saxophone wizardry, Blue refusing listening to either THE DEAD or Frank Zappa & raising hell if anyone tried to play anything but Wilson's music, from that point always rapt to hear any of Bert's recordings I'd lay on the tiny, intrepid tyke.

BTW: I sold the hide-a-bed, but kept it's mattress; which works great with the futon frame roof-rack, which now is sans the end pieces/armrests when in roof mode attached with ring clamps to the roof-rack cross frames.

[FestYboy]

Bob, i used large sheet metal screws with small pilot holes to keep the plastic from cracking to mount my vac gauge just where you're thinking of putting the tach. i used dome head screws that were 3/4" long kind of like the ones you see for mounting license plates. been working well for me for 5 years now.

[bobstad]

Never give a sucker a hook through the gills...

...to mount my vac gauge...

I'm curious about getting a vacuum gauge myself? What brand do you have, and how has that worked for you? Would you recommend one now? Are there any others you've seen which might also be interesting?

I've done some web searches, but mostly they have vacuum gauges meant for people with cars using a turbo-charger; while what I'd like is one of the vacuum gauges old timers used to like, with the colored graphing to show whether a person was driving economically or not.

Green for best economy, yellow if accelerating a little, on a hill or with a load, then red if really sucking the fuel through a lot; so even an environmental theme for the future.

Those old style vacuum gauges were I think most popular in the fifties, so a little before my time.

I remember I used to like roaming junk yards to fill my pockets with freebe finds; to the point I now joke at places they should weigh me before and after, and show off whatever I've come up with they always give me anyway, like extra fasteners and once a cool tiny Buck knife about five years ago.

During these sort of expeditions I'd always see a few of those old vacuum gauges I probably could've gotten for next to nothing, but now I imagine they are getting pretty rare.

[FestYboy]

got my gauge from harbor freight for $25 and i use it for engine diagnosis and economy monitoring. you can find them everywhere, just have to look a bit as the boost/vac gauges are more popular.