I am looking for some technical advice or information on an issue that I am having with the tachometer on my 1984 XLX. The bike didn't come equipped with a tach. So I installed an aftermarket one it 10 or more years ago. The tach I installed work fine. For some unknown reason, when I got the bike out of winter storage this spring. It didn't want to work. So, I ordered another aftermarket one just like it. It had the same color coded wire connections as the other one that I had. (black for ground, orange for 12 volts and pink for the trigger wire) When I hooked it up and turned on the ignition, the tach needle immediately took off and swung around and stuck on 8,000 RPM’s. I thought that maybe it would swing back when I turned the ignition off, but it wouldn’t. I tried starting the bike and it wouldn’t do anything. I turned the bike off and disconnected the wires and it stayed stuck where it was at. Since it is a sealed unit, there is no way that it can be physically moved it back. Thinking that I must have gotten a defective tach, I ordered another one. When I got it, it did the same thing. Does anyone out there have any idea what might be happening?

 

As it turns out I did in fact get two defective tachs. I talked to a friend of mine about this problem. He had a used tach that he let me borrow. I hooked it up and it worked fine. First thing, I wasn't aware that when you first turn on the ingnition, the tach wants to swing all the way to the high side (8,000 RPM's) before returning to zero. The same way that tachs do in newer cars. The old tach that I had didn't do that. So the problem has been solved. Thanks to everyone that looked at this posting.