Electrical: 63 Hawk with R2 Tachometer wiring

[tim333]

Just got this 63 Supercharged Hawk. Currently not running waiting for carb and fuel pump. I was told the tachometer doesn't work. Checked wiring today, this is what I found: Two wires loosely connected at the drivers side terminal of the tach.....one wire going to the positive side of the coil, the other to the ballast resistor-same terminal of the resistor that the condenser is connected. I have a shop manual but don't see any diagrams for a tachometer.

[SN-60]

The wire going to the resistor is the 12V feed....but if I remember correctly there should also be a white ground wire as part of the tach harness.

[GinettaG12P]

If it is really an R2 tach, it requires a sending unit. My 1963 R2 had it under the dash in a nearly inaccessible spot. Here is what the round sender looks like. The four terminals on the sender are: Ground (white wire to chassis ground bus), M (yellow wire to the brass terminal on the tachometer), + (positive from hot in run), and D (black wire to distributor.)

[karterfred88]

I didn't see you mention a sender can, or square black box type sender. Tach won't work without one of those, unless someone has updated it with modern internals: SI> electrical>Tachometer> Hawk
If you don't have the can for the board it could be hard to make it work.

[tim333]

I'll check to see which tach I have and which sender, round or square.

[savannahgreg]

The whole combination is a healthy chunk of $ if all bad. You can put in a SW (who made the originals) lookalike tach for $139 that fits hole exactly and looks like stock except for the SW logo. Doesn't require a sender and its preprogrammed for 8 cylinder cars. Has a chrome bezel though so you would have to paint it or they may actually make a black bezel.

[tim333]

This is the tach, I guess it's not a R series tach.....

[karterfred88]

This is the tach, I guess it's not a R series tach.....

Doesn't matter, still need a sender. Somewhere I have a cube style sender that a PO bought for my Avanti, which was the wrong one. I'll try and locate it to see if that will work. I'm sure if you pull the Tach we'll be able to figure out which one you need, but you will need one. If it were me, I'd pull it, buy a replacement 0-6000 RPM SW tach and just eliminate the hassle of one, you can change the needle and face if you really want it to look original and be done.
I found my sender, but others will have to tell you if it will work, only know it was sold by SI to PO but is wrong for the Avanti. Has marking 766E1 1F and stamped 8 cyl on side if t will work you can have it for cost of mailing, I don't need it.

[tim333]

There isn't a sender anywhere under the dash.

[Warren Webb]

My 63 R-2 Hawk has the same sending unit as pictured in post #3. On the Hawk tachs the Super Hawk had the Red band from 5000 to 6000 while the standard R- series had all white numerals like yours.

[tim333]

So Warren, is yours an R2 like mine? What's the meaning of "standard R series?" Does that include the R2?

[joncon]

My 63 R1 Cruiser has the round sender and the red from 5000 to 6000. Unfortunately someone changed the dist. to electronic so the tach doesn't work. I'd like to change it back to points. My sender is mounted on the driver's side kick panel up high.

[Dick LeRoux]

I bought the SI sending unit for my '63 Avanti R2 #2658 & out of the box it was zip. Instructions say you can mis-wire it & nothing was mis-wired. Hooked up exactly as it should & nothing. Two others verified it, same result. Lauderdale Speed rebuilt it, they also verified that the SI sender was NFG. For the price of an accurate rebuild, I might seek an alternative.
My $0.02 worth

[tim333]

Thanks Joncon, can't wait til tomorrow to see if my sender is mounted there. I was told it was on the dash cross support, which it wasn't

[karterfred88]

OK no sender no work. The only difference in the Tach heads is red numerals from 5-6000 RPM regardless of Hawk with an R2 engine, R2 super hawk package or a 289. The only difference is inside the senders. Round can dual point, square can single point. R1,R2/JTS engine should have dual point Prestolite. Thus round can type. SW didn't change the guts of the head for Studebaker depending on models, just applied different faces and supplied different senders. Get the man a round sender if he has dual points, and square one if it was modified to look like an R2 without the dual point distributor.