I felt
that with the TiiCo kit going in my van, I needed a tach that
could see the full RPM range of my new motor. The answer was to
get a 7k RPM tach out of a Golf/Jetta II dash cluster. As I found
out, it was much easier than I thought it was going to be to install
the higher RPM tach in my van.
Once
you remove the instrument cluster from the van, you'll have to
remove the 2 pods (speedo and tach) and the center section from
the housing. The blue circuit board will come with it. When that
is done, you'll be able to see the faces of the gauges without
the clear plastic in the way. Pop the tach needle off the gauge
(I used a pair of butter knives, one under each side of the center
of the gauge needle), and remove the 2 small screws that hold
the tach face in place.
Next
you'll have to look at the back of the pod and remove the 5 nuts
that hold the H2O temp and fuel gauges on. After that, you will
be able to see the tach itself sitting in the center of the pod.
there are 2 screws that go in from the back to hold the tach in
place. If you remove these screws, the tach will pull right out.
Simply dismember a Golf/Jetta II cluster (very similar dismantling
method) and remove its tach and screw it into the Vanagon cluster.
There
are 2 ways to have the 7k tach face visible. The quick and easy
way is to just use the tach face from the Golf/Jetta cluster.
The only problem with that is that the golf/Jetta has a flat spot
at the bottom of the gauge, so there will be a slight gap at the
bottom once it's in the V'gon cluster.
The
other way is to put a 7k RPM overlay on the V'gon tach face (as
well as the speedo and dummy light indicators). An explanation
of that is also on this site. |