Spridget tachometers occupy a lot of our time. They break a lot. That’s why we love the electronic tachometer option we sell in our catalog, which you can see below (click photo for more pix in our parts catalog). This electric gauge allows you to dispose of the wonky mechanical drive system.
Most Sprites still have their original mechanical tach drive. We’re constantly discovering new ways that they can break.
In today’s installment of “As the tach turns,” you can see something new, which is a worn generator housing, which resulted in a high level of stress on the tach gearbox which led to its destruction and rendered the tachometer non-operational. I am sharing this with you because it helps all of us be that much smarter about keeping these instruments operational. It’s smart to check your tach gearbox-take it apart and pack it with grease.
The symptom, in this case, was a tachometer that worked intermittently. Disassembly of the little tach gearbox attached to the rear of the generator revealed more carnage than we’ve ever seen before. You can see the teeth are worn badly on the drive gears, and that’s why it was full of brass powder. This little gearbox was well on its way to having no gears.
A new generator and tach drive fixed the problem.
Please also make sure your tach cable is routed properly in your the engine bay so you don’t add stress and friction to that driveline. If that cable is stressed, your tach will read quite nervously. Click here for a post we have done in the past on the proper routing for your tach cable.
You can buy all the parts you might need in our catalog. This post demonstrates one more reason why we like alternators or Gen/alts, which have better bearings than the original stock generator and charge more efficiently. You can buy all those parts at the links below if you’re interested, or click here for our complete catalog!
