Thread: Erratic tacho on RRC Soft Dash

I have a D1 300 Tdi (not a RRC), but when my tacho decided it liked to dance, it turned out to the be a loose wire connected to the alternator. Just wondering if it may be something similar.

The wire concerned is white with a grey ("slate" in LR speak) stripe connected to the "W" terminal at the rear of the alternator. Loose connection at the alternator is the most common cause of crazy tacho syndrome.

Or the alternator is on the way out, which is what happened to my soft dash when the tacho went haywire.

Cheers

Steve

Thanks Guys,

I check out the white/grey wire connection and all looks good and the alternator looks pretty new.

I removed the tacho wire from the alternator and then turned on the ignition and the needle moved again to about 5000 rpm on the dial. Started the engine and obviously no change to the tacho. I then put the wire back on and the revs went up with engine revs, gave it a rev and the needle went up and down with engine revs. So it looks like the feed from the alternator is good. Its when the tacho is energised the needle moves straight away and could sit anywhere around the dial when power is removed.

I've never looked inside an electric tacho before and I'm wondering if there are gears inside that are warn? But might be time to pull the instruments cluster out and check the connections and earth.

Still anyone know if a Disco 1 cluster is the same as a soft dash one?

I'd hazard a guess and say that you could remove just the tacho from the D1 instrument pod and fit it to the soft dash cluster if it didn't swap over complete. Having done a D1 > LSE diesel engine swap for a friend I did look at the instruments but never actually tried the swap. The plastic surround is definitely slightly different.