73 3 cyl ford 3000 tachometer

joe201

Member
The cluster on my ford 3000 everything works tachometer,fuel,temp and charge light and oil light,except the hour meter. I'm told by several sources that if I bought a new cluster the fuel and other gauges would probably not work correctly. I found hour meters for around$ 20.00 that you wrap a cable around a spark plug wire and small easy to mount tach/hour meter displays rpm and hour no wiring needed. This style would be more true than a 12 volt hour meter that worked when key was on . What are you guys thoughts ?
Thanks joe
 
Why does an hour meter need to have a sensor wire wrapped around a spark plug wire? Sounds more like a digital tachometer to me, which may also have an hour meter.

An hour meter that is just an hour meter should just need to be connected to a spot in the electrical circuit of the tractor that is hot whenever the engine is running. It will be more accurate than the original hour meter, as that one was driven by the same cable that drives the tach, and therefore would advance faster or slower depending on the engine rpm's.
 
Not much chance of fixing one.
The hour counter is driven by a tiny brass worm and worm wheel.
The flaw in the design on those was they were greased when they were assembled but with no way to add grease they got dry and wore out the worm.
The tachs on the 65-75 models were poor.
In addition to the failure prone worm, they liked to break the tach needle and/or break the shaft it pivoted on.
 
I think the idea of rpm based tach hours was to show actual work usage, not run time. If you run 2 hours at half rated rpm, you ink accumulate 1 hr. But you ate also doing less work, less wear.

Now if I rented my machine by the hour, then yeah, electric clock and bill on that! ;)
 
that model laSTS ABOUT 3 YEARS IN AN OPEN STATION tractor,,, either the little internal battery runs down or the wx gets it.
 
The reason I asked about is last year I raked hay with my Naa ford in fourth gear at low RPMS after repairing the tachometer/ hour meter I had raked about 4 1/2 hours and the hour meter showed a little over 2 hours. All the maintenance manuals say do certain checks and adjustments at X amount hours. I just want a true hour reading compared to the hour meter that counts all hours the same when its at idle or low RPM or 2100 rpms.

Thanks Joe C
 
(quoted from post at 19:01:40 02/12/16) The reason I asked about is last year I raked hay with my Naa ford in fourth gear at low RPMS after repairing the tachometer/ hour meter I had raked about 4 1/2 hours and the hour meter showed a little over 2 hours. All the maintenance manuals say do certain checks and adjustments at X amount hours. I just want a true hour reading compared to the hour meter that counts all hours the same when its at idle or low RPM or 2100 rpms.

Thanks Joe C

Joe - The engineers who designed the tractor also designed the maintenance schedule, and they knew that the hour meter varied depending on the engine rpm's, so using the factory hour meter to schedule your maintenance is correct.
 
Why not price a replacement tach for the cluster you have if everything else works? A full replacement cluster shouldn't be a problem either tho.. it when converting to later style instruments where the problems usually arise...

Rod
 


If that is the case, you tach is working as designed. Its calibrated to give you correct hours at working rpm... so running the engine slower will make it slower,, running it faster, will record hours faster. Its an engine clock, not a time clock... so low rpm hours are easier on the tractor and you "clock" slower hours and therefour the maintainance cycle is extended....
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top