well after searching and reading i found that their is a bunch of info in the forum about the different vehicles and how every one of them needs a tach and how involved it is, so i decided to document my adventure. hopefully this will help someone somewhere. if not............ im better for doing it and learned a bit more about my little rig hahaha i bought my tach from glowshift. its nothing super fancy. 2 inch diameter and mounted on a swivel mount on top of my dash. i was trying to figure out the best way to wire it all up and keep things neat, tidy, and the fewest splices. so i opted for removing the steering wheel cover and started testing wires for power, including the headlights so that the lighted bezel would function properly. in this pic there are two plugs. the one on the left is from the ignition, the plug on the right is from the headlight harness. the red wire with yellow stripe and black dots is where i hooked the wire supplied from the tach for the headlights. it only has power when the key AND headlights are on. i removed this wire from the plug and spliced the wire from the tach to it i soldered them together and used heat shrink to seal em up. then replaced the wire in the plug that completed the light wiring, so next was the constant power, switched power and the ground. all of which are included in the wiring harness for the ignition the large white wire with green stripe is the only wire that has constant power, key on or off. the yellow wire with black stripe is the one i used for the switched power wire. it is not effected when the starter is engaged and only has power when the key is in the run position, meaning that if the key is in the accessory position while listening to the radio, the tach will remain off so, once again, i removed the wire i was working with stripped a section and soldered the constant power wire from the tach to the white/green stripe wire this is how i splice the wires. then retwist them and solder, then cover with one or two layers of heat shrink tubing as needed some may be wondering at this point, how to remove the wire from the plug............. this is the plug as seen looking into it. the empty space top left is where the white power wire was removed. inside the hole you will see a tab. that tab actually locks the spade connector into the plug. luckily i have 3 daughters. i stole one of their bobby pins and straitened it, then slide it down the wire into the plug. have to keep it centered to release the tab. once done, the wire will be easily pulled out.
so now at this point we have successfully attached the light, switched power and constant power wires from the tach to the wire harness leaving us with the ground wire and the pickup wire that goes to the coil. the ground wire can be spliced into the same plug as the two power wires the ground is located behind the white power wire now that all the easy stuff is done we move on to the green wire. the wire that hooks to the coil and sends the signal to the tach. so off to the coil we go and remove the plug that has the two small wires in it. once you remove the plug from the coil you will need to split the plastic sleeve that encases the two wires in order to expose the wires and remove the yellow lock that holds the wire into the plug to remove the yellow lock, just use either a small flat head screw driver and pry up on the lip that is to the outside of it or use your fingernail depending on whether or not you still have any and it will look like this then you will be able to pull the TAN wire, NOT the black wire, remove the tan wire and splice the green wire from the tach to it once spliced and heat shrinked reassemble the wire and plug, not forgetting to replace the yellow lock that you may have lost by now now that the wire and plug are all back together, wrap the plastic sheathing around the wires and use electrical tape to wrap it all back up agian
replug the wires back into the coil and start fishing the green wire along the wire harness until you reach the threw hole rubber grommet that the wire harness goes into the cab threw. then go into the cab and remove the rubber mats on the floor. this will reveal a piece of tin that is the center hump on the floor. its held on with three screws. one on either side and one located top middle below the gear shifter. remove those 3 screws and you will find your wiring harness runs forward. now that ya got that far you will need a piece of wire or a screw driver to push threw the grommet so that you can tape the green wire to it and pull it threw, allowing you to run it along with the factory harness all the way up to the green wire coming from the tach. run the wire up the firewall and behind whatever you think will hold it out of the way of things all done!! turn the key and watch your new tach do what it does!!
Good job!I've thought about a tach but never got around to it.I recently bought a Hijet for parts and it had a tach but the way it was wired it showed the rpms for the electric fuel pump that someone had clobbered into it. They used clear insulated speaker wire and wire nuts.Who ever did that really needs to see your post.
Hahaha WOW!!! The more I work on other peoples things, the less I'm surprised hahaha. So what rpm does the file pump run at? I've actually wondered about that hahahaha. It turned out real nice and clean. I can't believe I never even came close to 5500 rpm before. Just sounded wrong. I think I'm going to stick with that as highest shift point!!! Hahaha
As you might expect the tach was all over the place but the only thing running was the fuel pump and one wire in the mess went to it so I guess it is kind of schizo.
Ohh no....... Might be able to resurrect it. Maybe they robbed the switched power from the fuel pump and the actual pickup wire is lost somewhere else. I think that all tachs use a green wire for the pickup that goes to the coil. Might get lucky enough to be able to pull the wires that hook at the tach and trace where it goes. Maybe they hooked it to a relay instead of the coil
Thanx!! I searched the forum for a while and didnt really find anything specific for the carry. Their was a thread created called....something.....tachy... Can't remember the exact name. He did the same setup as I was trying to find the info to do but on a different rig. So..... I figured if I had to figure it all out myself and couldn't cheat by using someone else's I'd document it and toss it on here in hopes that someone else would bennifit hahaha
Thanks for the great write up the pictures are a great help. I finished mounting my tach and was not sure how to attach the green wire. You solved my problem, never saw a coil like these... mine is a 93 Suzuki. You made my day.
muddy moose: I removed both the upper and lower steering column shrouds, but the plugs are not as evident as in your pics. I think I see the plugs you're referring to down behind the more center of the dash. Did you have to fish them out? My Carry is a '95, but there shouldn't be that much difference. Are there wire alternatives nearer to the driver's (right) side of the dash? (Never mind: Figured it out.)
What rpm are you at in different speeds if you've checked yet? Say 80km/100km in 4th/5th? I am looking to put one of those glowshift ones in my 93 carry this winter and really appreciate your post.
At 80kph (@50mph by my Pyle heads-up GPS speedometer) in 5th gear on 12" rims, I’m running at @4700rpm. I generally shift at between 3500 and 4500 rpm for every gear, depending on the load and the situation. BTW, I used Tap-It solderless T-connectors for all my splices, so I didn’t have to cut any wires or disassemble the plug on the coil.
