Tach from '68 Cougar to '67 Mustang dash

[Jonk67]

Well I scored a '68 Cougar tach from a guy at work just talking cars, turned out he has a '67 coupe and 3-4 Cougars in varying condition. I mentioned wanting to put a full sized tach in the mustang and he said he had a Cougar tach if I wanted it. Brought it home and started looking at mounting it. The mounting is different but I can fab something to hold it in. I've got a SW greenline oil pressure gauge going into a gauge pod under the radio so I won't miss the stock one in the 5" hole. Debating on finding an alt. Charge/discharge gauge and putting it in the clock hole.
Not sure how to wire it yet, I'd like to wire it separate as I believe the stock would go through the ignition and if anything went wrong with the tach it would stop the car from starting?
Suggestions for wiring?

I had to trim the lip a little so it would sit flat and I'll need to figure out how it'll light the gauge.
I may get the mustang style numbers screened onto the face.

 

[lethal289]

ask tarafied, but i think you need the backing plate from the back of the gauge cluster to efficiently do this swap. From his build thread:

To continue with the history, I started on the interior next. The instrument cluster was a standard 67 cluster with no tach. This car has been a budget operation so rather than spend $1000+ on Phantom gauges (which are really cool BTW) I decided to try and put a factory tach in. I bought a 67 Cougar tach cluster on ebay for $45. I put the tach in but it took a little fabricating. The Cougar cluster depth was different than the Stang. I had to make the "cup" deeper. I also put a 68 oil pressure gauge in the where the clock was. The 67 had the oil pressure in the large cluster and in 68 they switched it with the fuel gauge. Since I gave up the oil pressure gauge for the tach I thought it would be good to add the 68 gauge. I don't have an amp gauge yet.

I also changed the bulb covers from blue/green to red/orange and to make the faces all match I bought a white face kit.

 

[Midlife]

Yes, the tach must be in-line with the wire going to the coil. The front end of the tach is a transformer, so if the gauge guts go bad, the transformer still allows current to go to the coil. Now if the transformer dies, then the car will die.

 

[Jonk67]

Thanks Jake, I forgot about Craig doing that, I'll have to find out where he got the white gauge faces and see if they sell black also, then I won't need to spend $100 having it done.
Craig M, can I wire it to the coil without it stopping the ignition? Like the minitach I have now that just feeds from the coil and gets ignition on juice without interrupting the ign?

Jon

 

[tarafied1]

That's cool. If you need help wiring it I can show you how I did mine. (below I attached a factory drawing and then a drawing I made of how I did mine)
The place that I got the white faces didn't have black but maybe a drawing could be made, you could paint it black and have Sluggo cut some vinyl?

 

[HighOctane]

There is always this guy? Looks like he does the Cougar conversion too. But I assume you are trying to do it without forking out any cash or as little as possible?

If anyone has used this guy I would appreciate some feedback as I am considering sending my cluster to get the Shelby overhaul and to have him modernize the tach internals.

http://www.tachman.com/ford.htm

 

[janschutz]

I have used the tachman on several gauges including the cougar conversion. He does great work. He will re-silkscreen the face and make all your gauges look and work like new.

 

[Midlife]

Gary does do very good work on tachs.

 

[HighOctane]

Thanks for the feedback on Gary fellas.