I am trying to install an aftermarket tach in a non guage car. I have the gas guage out now but the new tach has a deeper body to it and doesnt seem to fit in place. Do the factory tack dash assemblys have a different or deeper housing?
Thanks in advance for the help.

What year is your car?

Its a 1969.

Is this an OER tach? I've installed an OER tach where the old gas gauge was in my 69 as well. I had to pull the dremel out and drill some holes to accept the unit. I created a 'template' of the back of the tach
http://69camaro.nextmill.net/temp/tach_template.jpg
Print it off, check to see if its the exact same fit as your tach (some printers might print slightly off), resize if needed. Then I cut it and used it to mark the back of the plastic to accept the new mounting holes of the OER tach.

Ok that makes sense to me. A factory instrument carrier would have had a larger hole to accept the tach housing.

If its an original style tach like OER for a 69 Camaro, what you want to do is pull the instrument carrier out of the car(easy to do) and on the back side where the tach will go you should see a faint line for the exact cutout so the gauge will slide in.

OK thanks for the help. Will the instrument carrier pull out without taking the dash pad off?

Negatory.

I'm at that point right now with fixing my fuel gauge. I started with my glove box, ash tray, radio, A/C controller and duct work. I did all that due to the fact that It's seem more easier to get to whatever I needed behind the Gauge carrier housing, thingy, pain in the A@@, knuckle scratcher.

Have fun.

john

i made a drawing of the tach cutout ,i can e mail you if you want it.

I did it with the cluster installed. Thats what the tach jpeg above is for, to print out, cut to fit so that you can trace the necessary holes. The back side of my 69 cluster didn't seem to have anything to help identify where the holes should exist. Worked great with the picture of the back side of the tach flipped.

I might try that as apposed to taking the whole dash apart

All you guys working on 69 dashes, please remember my "what is is, Where it is" project. I'm needing good pics of devices and connections to post as a reference guide, email me the pics, please!

This reference will be very valuable as it gets filled up. If we had a pic posted of the back of a 69 tach with the wires attached and colors and positions clear, this post would be answered. I all ready have a template of the tach cutout required when converting, just need a guage to go with it!

I made a template and laid it in the dash opening and traced the hole with a permenate marker. I then used a dremel tool to make the hole, it worked great! I didnt even have to take the dash aprt, thanks for the help guys!