Re: 505 STI - DEAD Tachometer

Peter Young (pyou@u.washington.edu)
Wed, 26 May 1999 08:52:43 -0800

Thanks for the suggestions concerning my non functioning Tach. I went through
the wiring cleaning all contacts I could find (there was a lot of corrosion)
but not neccesarily involving the Tach. I checked continuity on the whole
length of 112 and 32B, every thing was good, power was getting to the back of
cluster on 32B and all grounds were good. Frustration set in so I gave up and
and proceeded to work on retorqing head bolts, new waterpump and other things.
I needed a new scissor jack and located one from Phillipe from the list, It
turned out he was parting out an 84 Sti and when I went over to pick up the
jack there was an instrument cluster so I popped out mine and plugged his in,
BINGO! I have a working Tach again. I brought the cluster home and extracted
the tach since the clusters on the 84 and 85 are a little different, (no oil
level light on the 84).
In the end: A functioning Tach and very clean grounds throughout the engine
compartment. By the way, after cleaning the grounding connections I've noticed
all the power accessories have increased vigor (windows, sunroof, mirrors),
the right turn signal doesn't act weird anymore either.
Manta of the month. 'Clean grounds are good grounds'

Thanks again to all who responded
Pete
85 STI
Seattle

Tamara Saarinen wrote:
>
> Martin Karo replied to Peter Young:
>
> I think on your car the tach pickups are on top of the coil. Have you
> checked them? If any are missing or detached, voila. If not,
> nevertheless, cleaning the spade connectors and outright replacing the
> female connectors might solve your problem.
>
> >>> Peter Young <pyou@u.washington.edu> 03/09 1:44 AM >>>
> I've got a non functioning Tachometer on an '85 505 STI. I've never seen
> it work and am trying to work from a haynes manual which doesn't offer
> much info on it (as far as I can tell). Looking at the wiring diagrams I
> get the impression that the 'Rev counter' is fed by a wire coming from
> the tachymetric relay which I think I finally found under the steering
> wheel. The question is, can this be tested or fixed or should I just
> replace it? Is this even the problem or is it further along in the
> spider web of wires. The guy I bought the car from claims it gave up the
> ghost one day and he couldn't determine whether it was the sender or
> not. He couldn't even find the sender unit which is understandable since
> he was working from the very same Haynes manual. Is there a sender unit?
> It seems to me that the tach would be fed from the ignition circuit
> somehow. If anybody has any ideas, they would be much appreciated.
>
> Pete,
>
> Busy last night, but here is our tuppence:
>
> We support Martin. Wire 112 (probably) takes the signal off the coil for
> use by the fuel injection system and by the tach. Via wire 112A, it goes to
> the fuel pump tachy relay, then branches off that pin as wire 112 to the
> tachometer. So cleaning the pin on the tachy relay won't help a
> nonfunctioning tach, but your fuel pump will be pleased! AND, if your fuel
> pump is working OK there isn't anything wrong with the signal from the
> coil. You could have a break in the wire 112 somewhere from where it
> connects to 112A on the tachy relay to its connection on the tach.
>
> ALSO, there is another wire supplying a signal to the tach: The wire is 32B
> (again, probably), and the signal is power from fuse 8, the same fuse that
> supplies power to components in the fuel control system. Again, with the
> fuel system working OK, the problem is not the power level from the fuse to
> the place where wire 32B branches off to the tach, but could be that power
> is lost somewhere from there to the tach along 32B.
>
> ALSO, there is a wire M (it says here) which goes from the tach to ground
> at the G4 connection located near the lefthand headlight (inside the frame
> just to the left of the radiator). This ground actually is reached by a
> path from the tach on the instrument board to the ground connection on the
> instrument board, THEN along wire M to the fuse block, then along M again
> from the fuse block to G4! Could there be a break between the tach and the
> fuse block. Yup. If not, there seems to be no other indication for bad
> wiring, and the tach becomes suspect.
>
> Isn't wiring fun!?! At this point, you may wish to forget the tach ... or
> get a model T.
>
> Keep us posted on your tach travails.
>
> Gene & Tamara