medicmoose

I've got a fairly basic aftermarket tachometer that I am trying to wire up. Just a couple of questions:

1) I want the light in the tach to be dimmable...where do I splice in so that the light works with the factory dimmer switch?
2) Where do I splice in under the hood for the ignition wire? It states to splice into the negative side of ignition coil or appropriate tach signal source.

Thanks for your help!

medicmoose

Got the ignition part figured out...now just how to get the light on the dimmer?

RAD4Runner

What model-year? Signature/Avatar are not guaranteed to be same truck as we are talking about.

medicmoose

It's a 1982 4x4 DLX. The one in the Avatar.

RAD4Runner

Cool.
Should have same as 1983, correct?
Connect positive side of tach backlight to green wire that is only on when tail light is on. (I know that's same color as on our first gen 4Runner.)
Turn taillights/dash lights on.
TOUCH negative side of tach backlight to one side of dimmer rheostat. Adjust brightness, and see if tach backlight is affected. If not, touch to the other side and repeat. CONNECT to the side that affects tach backlight.

medicmoose

Thanks for the help!

RAD4Runner

Pleasure to help keep that sexy truck running well

If your tail-light relay is inside cabin, that's probably best place to tap off the positive (green) side. Would be nice if you could post pictures of the relay block front and rear. I'll also archive it, and will try to start an album showing locations / pin=outs of 1982-1983 truck relays/fuses.

MVP

yeah that is a nice looking rig

what was the outcome of the tach project?

medicmoose

I have to take the driver's side air vent our today so in doing so I will have access to the wiring on the dimmer. I'll attempt to get the tach light wired up to the dimmer today.

medicmoose

Okay, so I had the rheostat out today and I stuck the wire going to the tach light on the one side and it dimmed and brightened the light opposite to the dash lights...when dash lights were dimming the tach light got brighter. So, naturally I thought if I stuck the wire to the other side of rheostat that it would work correctly. Not the case...turning the rheostat switch did nothing and the tach light remained off. Now I'm stumped!