i was wondering since on my 81 i don't have any rpm gauge, can i put in a later model gauge cluster and if so what years will fit? i'd really like the rpm gauge.

 

I used one from an 83 on my 81. As far as I know anything from that generation is a direct swap.

 

yeah .. 81-83 will swap .. plug and play


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what do i have to do for the rpm gauge to work? run any wires or sensors?

 

The 79-81 gauge cluster has round plugs and the 82-83 guage cluster has the square plug. The later model will bolt in, but you would have to figure out the wiring. You would have better luck finding a tach cluster with the correct plug. A 2WD cluster will work too, but you will have to disassemble both units, adding the tach and 2WD cover to your original unit so you can have the 4WD light.

Tha tach runs off the coil/ignighter assembly. I am pretty sure that all of the trucks wiring harnesses were made to take a tach, however I have heard that some of the non SR5 units were not wired for the tach.

 

Hey Paul, that's right, some cluster harnesses don't have a wire for the tach.. Fairly easy to run it to the coil though. For '82-'83 harnesses, the wiring for Dlx vs sr5 are different..it's not a plug and play..you need to splice in the correct wire to the cluster..
Got this off Marlin Crawler, this should help.

http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=2973.0

 

That Marlin link has a lot of my info, which is also on this site in the archives. It's specifically 1983, but you'll get the idea on what needs to be done. So the wire colors/#'s won't help you, but the process will probably be basically the same, although I've heard that with pre-82/83 models, you can just plug in and everything works. No moving wires around, no running an extra wire for the tach. Good luck! For me, it was a sometimes frustrating, but fun job. No lifting heavy, greasy objects

 

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f114...e-swap-164182/

 

so i found out one of my friends has an 81 gauge cluster with an rpm gauge, now have to convince him to get rid of it. i do have the tach wire from the coil. so i was also wondering, my cluster has just a big T in the middle of that, can i pop that out and put a tach there instead?