Electrical: Adding a factory tach. to a GT Hawk

[wlfrench]

How difficult would it be to add a factory tachometer (assuming that I can find one) to a 63 GT Hawk that came without it?

Wayne

[Warren Webb]

Not difficult, just time consuming. A wire harness from Lark Works (4 wires basic) & the round sending unit along with the tach head & brackets of course.

[wlfrench]

What about the dash panel with the cut out for the tach? Are they hard to find?

[doofus]

The instrument board as the book calls it already has the tach hole. making the right size hole in the overlay might be tricky. Good Luck, Doofus

[swvalcon]

If you had the whole dash out of the car I thing you could make the hole for the tach with the right size hole saw from the back side of the dash panel. The hole is all ready in the fiberglass part of the dash.

[JoeHall]

To accurately cut a tach hole in the overlay, remove the speedo, then reach through the hole with a stubby pencil and trace around the edge of the instrument board tach hole, tracing a circle onto the backside of the faux wood overlay. Next, remove the rest of the instruments, and then the overlay. With the overlay out, cut the hole from the backside, tracing along the penciled line. I think a hole saw would be too aggressive, and may get away from the user and destroy the flimsy overlay, so I'd probably use a dremel.

[63 R2 Hawk]

There were two different tach setups, one for R- series cars and one for non-R cars. The R cars used dual points and they require the round "can" style tach drive usually mounted under the dash. The R tachs can be identified by a redline. The non-R cars used a transmitter module inside the distributor and the tachs didn't have a redline. As far as I know, you can't mix and match the tachs and sending units. Here's some more info: http://www.studebaker-info.org/rjtec...tml#Tachometer

[SN-60]

I've made those tach/clock/vacuum gauge holes before from the front with the dash installed....a bit easier to do with the steering wheel removed. A quality hole saw and a light touch work well!

[bezhawk]

The non R tachs did use a sender. they were a square can not the round. They were just a transformer, and some capacitors, not the transistor sender like the round cans. There was rebuild article in Turning Wheels years ago on rebuilding the square senders.

[JoeHall]

If you are concerned with accuracy, the OEM tach is at the bottom of the barrel. I have installed modern, "close enough for me" appearing tachs in both GTs.
OTOH, the OEM, 56J tach is about as accurate as any available today, so it remains in the car, doing its job very well, as it always has.