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Tips
Tips

Bugeye speedo/tach in a MKIV?

Atrus

Jedi Warrior
Offline
I really like the face on the bugeye speedo and tach - the silver disc in the middle. I know the tach is mechanical. Any way to retro (reliably) both of these into an MKIV with a 1275? I am thinking no, but thought I'd ask anyway.
 

jlaird

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
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There is, thread around here someplace and yep the pointers are interchangeable to my knowledge.
 

bugimike

Yoda
Offline
Jack, I have taken the guts out of a newer speedo and installed them into an old Bugeye case & face. worked great! Did have to fiddle with the odometer openings asthe newer unit has more digits. Did it slow and careful and it looks great and works well too! As far as the Tach, I used and electronic unit out of a Fiat. It doesn't match, but works real well. Atrus, the newer guages are a smaller diameter than the Bugeye (3" vs. 4") which would require some dash surgery if possible!

---------
Mike
59 Bugeye
69 Sprite
 

jlaird

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
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There are instructions here someplace to convert an electrical tac into a mech case etc etc. Same case and face etc is used, just changes the inards.
 

Sarastro

Obi Wan
Silver
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The tach internals (I haven't dug into the speedometer yet, good luck to my speedometer!) are held to the face by two small screws. That's all. If you install the internals of some other tachometer into a bugeye case and face, you probably will have to drill new holes for the screws and figure out some way to fill the old holes (they're small). One potential problem is the shape of the face--it might happen that those screw holes, on the tach internals that you put in the bugeye case, will end up on a curved surface of the bugeye face and that will make mounting it much more difficult. This might be especially likely with the speedometer. You will have to cut a hole in the tach case for the electrical connections as well. But that's all I can think of. I should be straightforward to do all this with ordinary hand tools. Just check and measure everything so you don't do a lot of cutting and then find that something won't fit.

Have fun!
 

jlaird

Great Pumpkin
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Use the old screws to fill the old holes, a drop of somthing on the back will hold em, cut to a shorter length?
 

Sarastro

Obi Wan
Silver
Country flag
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That probably would work. Or, just fill the holes with epoxy and color it in with a felt-tip marker. They're so small you could probably just ignore them and no one would notice.
 

jlaird

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
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Yep. Expect you are correct. Only a few of us would even know it was wrong. Go for it.
 
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