I was hooking up my tach(the same one I had in the Valiant and the Swinger) an apparently I did it wrong. Green to the - side of the coil, black to ground and red and white to a key off fuse in the fuse block. I turned the key and FTZZT! smoke from under the hood. Now I have to figure out which link I smoked. I don't have turn signals, 4-ways, radio, gage warning lights.

again UGH!

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Looks like I have a bigger problem. I disconnected the tach, replaced the bad link, turned the key on and the the new link fried.
now what?

I bet I ran the screw through a wire inside the steering column, that would be the way my luck is running with this car.

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Yup that was it the screw was to long, short screw and we are good to go. The tach works too.

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Isn't it great when you answer your own questions?

You said it!!

I was sitting here thinking what else could it be? I disconnected everything I hooked up then it him me. The only other thing I had done was mount the tach to the steering column.
I had intended to use a much shorter screw in the first place but some how I dropped it and it went in the slot that the seatbelt comes through the plastic moulding. I heard it bouncing around as is went all the way down and thought "if I had intended to do that I would never in a million years have made that shot". Murphy is EVERYWHERE!

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Amen to that. Seems the answer to most problems are the easy ones we overlook. Just look at the problem I had with my 5th Ave..hard starting, would sometimes start, always ran great. Thought it was the ignition switch, bad wiring, starter relay, carburetor..oh no. It was the distributer that Reed figured out for me and I had an extra of. A ten minute job to R and R.

Whew! Good catch. Thanks for serving as a warning to the rest of us wanting a column-mount tach. I'm planning on putting mine in soon, so I'll make sure I use a short screw. What length did you end up using?

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

The wrong one was about an inch long the the one holding it on now is about 3/8"

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Good to know. Thanks!

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant