Tacho on 80 series diesel

AFAIK, the standard doesn't have an alternator takeoff for the tach. You could use a Hall Effect sensor I guess, but having been along this track I can assure you that it isn't just plug and play.

Hi Tony
I have heard you can hook an aftermarket tacho up to one of the outputs of their alt and make it work.
Start by having a look on your fuel pump to see if there is a sensor with wire coming from the engine side of it...there will be one on top towards the front (fuel cut solenoid) sometimes you can be lucky and have a tacho pickup already installed...then its off to the wreckers for a dash that plugs in.....the fuel gauge readout can be put on a relay aswell, so the sub switch switches tank levels for the one gauge....eliminating the need to run wire to the roof and a roof sub gauge.
The last thing to remember, is that there are three distinctive eras to 80 series...the series 1 80 1990-8/1992 has a spedo cable dash, 9/92-1/95 has electronicm 2/95 to 98 has different wiring layout and warning light systems, soooo if you are after a dash, it will have to come from a 1hz gxl cruiser, within these dates.
Andrew
Andrew

Another easy way to get a tacho is to fit a Tiny Tach (www.tinytach.com).
All you need to connect it to are ground on the engine, power (anything from 9 -32v even a 9v smoke detector battery) and clamp the transducer to any injector pipe. It keeps a total running hours, two service intervals, highest engine revs reached and of course current RPM in 10 rpm steps.
You only have to measure the outside diameter of your engines injector pipes to get the right sized transducer when purchasing.
While there is an Aussie distributor (approx $AU240) it is much cheaper to buy online from the US website, shipping was $us11 for 5 day airmail, tach costs $us65, all up around $AU100.
The only drawback I've found is that it hasn't got any internal lighting so a bit hard to see at night. Shouldn't be too hard to put a led near it to provide illumination.

Thanks all, ill check in the morning to see if ive got a sensor on the pump, if not ill try the after market ideas.
cheers Tony

Yes it can be done. I did it many years ago on my standard 80 series. I do not have the details anymore as I have sold the vehicle. From memory I dismanlted the altenator and found the "star" point and by experiment used 2 resistors (10k and 1.5k) ?? to make a voltage divider from this point to ground. The junction of the resistors was set to give around 3-4 volts peak to peak as measured on an oscilloscope. This junction was brought out to a wire and then to the tacho input wire that is used on the GXL model. The wiring is in the loom. I had to use the calibration pot in the tacho to bring the reading down a little. From memory I set it to 700 - 750rpm at idle. It worked a treat for the last 9 years. Sorry I cannot give you accurate details but an auto electrician may be of assistance.

Keith