Tachometer noise

[Kenneth F.]

My son has better hearing than I do, and says the tachometer in our 1962 has a clicking noise. I removed the cable and housing and the cable appears that I probably used Kable-Ease for lubricant. The cable does not appear to be kinked, and the tachometer was new when I put the car together about 20 years ago and about 2K miles. What I wonder is if the cable is too long on the distributor end? The cable sticks out 1 1/16" from the dist. end of the housing. The cable sticks out 3/8" on the tach end. If I measure the depth of the hole in the distributor tach gear, it is also 1 1/16." The cable housing is 31 7/8" and the cable is 33 1/2." I am thinking about grinding an 1/8" off of the dist. end of the cable. Should I try doing this?

Ken

[Edward J.]

Re: Tachometer noise

Ken see if you can measure how far the inner cable inserts into each end and that should tell you if its to long. I myself have not seen a cable that was premade and is to long. As for the noise run the car with cable unhooked to make sure the noise is not from the dist. side.

[Joe R.]

Re: Tachometer noise

Kenneth,

Follow Eds advise on checking the cable ends but I highly doubt that's your problem. How much cable ease did you use on the tach cable? In the case of lubricating the speedo or tach cable a lot is too much. Use cable ease very sparingly. The cable will act as a pump if the case is filled with too much (any) lubricant. It works it way into the tach head or speedometer head. If that happens it will have to be disassembled and cleaned.
Keep us informed on what you find.

JR

[Kenneth F.]

Re: Tachometer noise

Ed and Joe, You were right about the cable not being too long. Even if the distributor end is 1/16" long, the tachometer gear is at least 1/4" deeper than the cable enters. I installed the assembly and ran the engine. There is a slight clicking at around 1,000-1500 RPM. Above 1500 RPM or so, I think the noise goes away. That cable assembly makes 2 bends. I wonder if the cable is making noise? The cable housing might be original with 250,000 miles. Do they wear inside?
Ken

[Pat H.]

Re: Tachometer noise

Ken, check the inner cable to see if you installed it correctly. The end of the cable that goes to the tach has the collar on it. I had a similar issue with a speed cable I just re-installed after lubricating it and had the cable in backwards

[Kenneth F.]

Re: Tachometer noise

Pat, I have the collar at the tachometer. If I do any more work on this, I would probably try another cable and housing. I probably would not remove the instrument cluster, only for the small amount of noise.
That is an interesting story about your cable.
Ken