Thread: Defender TD5 Tachometer Installation

We've said that sometimes the connector is already in there? Is there any way of telling without taking the panel out? ie from 2003 and on they have them?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>er maybe because the clock would be live all the time not just when ignition on?
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The clock had 3 wires, one purple and the power and ground for the light. I'm assuming that the purple was for the constant power feed. I just used the power and ground from the clock for the light in the water temp gauge (taken from the tach as the lights stayed in the same positions when the gauges shifted over). I then soldered into the power and ground feeds from the other gauges to power the tach. Everything worked fine, although the wires are a little tighter than I would usually like.

I got a lot of help from this thread, so I am updating with my experience in case it helps others. I have a 2005 D110 with a TD5.

I bought the stock rev counter (tachometer) part.

The new tach needs light power and ground, operational power and ground and a tach signal. 5 leads.

jump the power and the ground from the temperature guage. when you bring over your ground to your tach, you need two ground terminals (one for the tach and one for the light). I have read different opinions about using the old purple power supply to the clock. That wire was not sufficient to power the tach, but the other guage power sources are pushing the right amperage. The first thing I did was buy a pack of famale quick connectors for 18-22 guage wire. I also bought some 18 guage wire, but 20 would be better. A distinct color is good for the wire, too.

to jump the power and ground connections, I cut the existing terminals off and installed new connectors with both the old and new wires going into the terminal crimp. On the temp and fuel guages, the white with green stripe is the positive power wire. The black is the ground. The othe wire is the signal for those instruments but you don't care about that third wire.

I followed the same procedure from one of the guage lights to get the positive power for the light.

That leaves the tach signal wire and this is where I spent a ton of time trying to use an existing wire. I have a bunch of unused wires and plug heads in my dash. I also have a couple of unused plug heads with many wires beneath the seat by the ecu. After many hours of testing, I could not find a clean existing unused wire between my two locations.

finally, I did run a new wire. I ran it out the top of the dash through the top of the firewall, into the engine compartment. I followed the bundled wire from the dash, down the firewall, over the back of the transmission and transfer case, and then across to the ecu compartment. My car is left side drive. I was able to sneak my wire through the existing grommets in the firewall and into the underseat box with a blunt screwdriver. This is a good time to have a helper (one person on each side of the grommet makes it a lot easier). I secured my new wire to the existing bundle with a few zip strips here and there.

Then at the ecu plug I had a little challenge. pin #19 was filled with a wire (yellow with pink stripe). this wire feeds the abs ecu as others have commented. There are actually two yellow with pink stripe wires coming out of the ecu plug and don't be confused by the one that goes into the speedometer. That is the wire from pin #13 and it won't help your tach.

If you don't have a wire in pin #19, you'll like to get one of those plug connectors. I read that they are called econ-seal plugs.

so I had to splice into this pin #19 yellow/pink wire right by the ecu plug. This is a bitch because you don't have any slack in the wire. I don't know what the right approcah is here, because I don't have the expertise. I only know that my technique was sloppier than I would like.

I cut the wire, spliced my new wire in, soldered and taped it up. It works fine right now but I am not proud of it.

So then my tach is working great. Running the new wire took the most time. Make sure you give yourself enough length in your jumped wires. But dont' leave too much extra wire; you don't want spaghetti behind the instruments.

I have read about this phantom test lead wire that is already in place. I think that might be fantasy. I can say that no such wire exists in my '05. There is a pair of wires that I could not identify behind the dash. They are gray with red stripe and white with yellow stripe. They run to a joint terminal with a blank covering their connectors. They might be for some optional switch that my car doesn't use, but I could not find this color combination in the wiring diagram specifications. I tried and tried to make this my wire because I did not want to run a new wire. but to no avail.

don't forget to reconnect the air tube for the front defogger. You undoubtedly knocked it loose while running the wire through the firewall. A little duct tape seemed required here.

I've just installed a factory TD5 guage into my 99 Defender. I don't have ABS, so I had the white/grey trace wire in No.19 Pin. Just follow the instrument cluster wires back until the meet a connector and the white/grey will enter this connector but has no wire exiting. I did this without a wiring kit. Just rigged the power of the other instruments.

Whole job took me an hour.

Thanks goes to Nonna's Post and the walk through that everyone keeps posting...

Web Rover

Easy.

hey whats a tacko worth ,do you need a genuine or does vdo or some one else make them & does it have to in the clock spot .
cheers scampo