I searched and searched for a solid answer to what wire do i hook my tach wire too. I didn't want to go buy an sr5 cluster and i already had the tach. I found loads of threads about hooking it to the wire on the coil with no power on it. I found this hard to figure out as everything i probed had power. I also noticed that in most of the pictures people posted they had a little green connector next to the ignitor to plug in to. My truck didn't have this. So i kept searching and finally google'd and found a schematic. I then found the correct wire. So here is a photo of said wire. Hope this clears it up for the next person.

Coming off the connector where i have the splice. Its the only solid black wire. All the other wires have some sort of color stripe but the tach wire is the only solid black.

 

No pic of the tach installed?

 

i'll post one tomorrow.

 

the wire to the coil you can hook to is the (-) terminal wire

 

Why would you ever use the scotch lock type connector ??

This is a personal dislike from seeing so very many failures of this type when used in trailer plug wiring

why did you not just put a ring terminal on and just attach it to the coil ??

 

true they corrodde easily. at least wrap with tape to keep waterout.

 

it was taped. i pulled the tape for the picture. I probed the coil and everything had power. How i don't know but it had power on both sides.

 

wheres the pics lol

 

Why didn't you do it this way? I found it the easiest.

 

what other types of wire taps are there? i hate those too and the main reason im hesitant on using one under the hood for a tach.

 

 

You have one very clean looking engine
That's the same way I hooked up my tach. Right to the -side on coil. How have u guys been mounting your tachs?

 

Will this also work if i get a tach an wire it like in the pics on my 3.0?

 

yea i wish mine had that style ignitor coil thing but it doesnt... it doesnt have the old school style pos./neg. terminal can shape coil part...
doesnt have the service connectors either

 

The first illustration shows an old style coil. The 2nd shows a coil pack. It shows how to connect to both styles. It's hard to tell from your original pic, only judging by the plastic dust cover around the coil wire(to distributor), but it does look like the "can" type coil. Either way you have directions to hook up either style coil...

 

Hope this might help you out some. I Don't know much about the 3.0

 

but mine isnt old enough to have the service style coil pack like that with those green caps..
ill take a pic and show you guys what ive got

 

see, its different from the two

 

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I would add on since it is the only one that seemed to match my setup. I have the strange two-part coil pack.


However, when following the instructions above, my digital tachometer was jumping all over the place. After testing the various wires, mine turned out to be the bottom right wire (which is not the solid black wire) when looking from the firewall toward the front of the truck.

Interestingly, this did not correspond with the green wire that comes out of the other side, but a gray wire, seen here:

This was confirmed correct with the tachometer built into my digital timing gun. Hopefully this helps someone else out there!

 

Isn't there also an unused green plug that sends a signal for the Tach as well?