Irish Mini Owners Club

hiya guys a long time ago (year or so) i decided to remove my clocks and put a little logo or sumn on them.. while i was at it i found something rattling in my tachometer so out of curiousity i opened it up, found nothing wrong and put it back together and back into the car..... tacho not working.....
was just wondering if this has ever happened to anyone before? it was working fine before i tricked at it and driving without it for so long now iv started to miss it... loads
is there anyone handy that would be able to fix it or give tips to fix it myself??? even the know how of whats where in the little fiddly electrical circuit that is in it??
its an original smiths tachometer that came with the car, when the lights are switched on the tacho still lights up too but no movement in the pointer whatsoever. i did check that there was a current going thorugh the circuit inside the tacho but just cant figure out whats wrong wit it........
any help , advice or if ya wanna fix it for me for a price be much appreciated
steven

heres a pic what i did as to logo
http://s215.photobucket.com/albums/cc10 ... C00010.jpg

First make sure you have the wiring on the back connected up right i.e. that the power in is not mixed up with the input from the coil. There is not a lot to them, my guess is maybe something got caught when you put it back together, have you tried reopening it to see if you have damaged a wire or pinched something. If you are still stuck and you need a new one I have a spare mint condition smiths rev gauge that I could sell you.

the power is not mixed up with the input from the coil?? wat ?
how much would you be lookin to sell your tacho for? does it click on to the other 2 clocks? (speedometer, fuel/oil)

There are generally 3 wires on a tacho, 1 12v+ , 1 earth, 1 trigger wire, the trigger wire is what actually makes the tacho work on older models it is taken off the negitive side of the coil, I'm not sure where on new models it is taken off maybe someone else can advise. If it is an older model i.e. pre injection/pre coil pack (i.e. still has distributer) then check if the coil negitive side has two wires comming off it. One should go to the dizzy, 1 to the tacho. To check you could just take a jump wire off the negitive side of the coil and link it directly to you tacho and see if that works.

My tacho is a Smiths stand alone gauge, not part of a cluster

Mechanicly you could have knocked the needle off its pivots, cheak that its free to move. Electricly if the ligh is on then the negitive is ok so just cheak the green + cable and white/black - from coil.

got it fixed!
had a look at all the cables and couldnt find any probs there so opened it up and had a wee goo... found that two little cables (dont know how to explain) were touching of each other wen they werent meant too, fixed that and put it back in and it worked again...
have to say its so much better driving a mini with a rev counter

thanks for your help guys
steven

The man's a genius I tell ya.

Now you can tell when you pass the red line!!

i never go near the red line to be honest... the noise and vibrations scare the jibbers outta me..... plus when i let it rev that high i get a strong smell of burning oil or something..<---- that normal by the way??

High revs can cause increses in back pressure which will blow oil vapour out the breathers. Are your breathers plumed into the carb?

yea they are plumed (?) connected onto the carb ..