Tach Installation Thread (Bad Weather Bikers)
I think the mistake was in soldering, not which wire was tapped.
Three wires at the coil: power +(white/black), ground -(black), and ignition module (pink).
That tells me only pink is getting the ignition pulse.
The brown wire is when using a Screaming Eagle ignition module (I assume Crain is the same).
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Yes, tap into the pink. I messed up by pulling the pin out of the connector, and then soldering too close to the pin to put it back into the connector. Then I messed with it so much trying to de-solder the wires that I broke it.
I finally just replaced the last 3 inches of the pink wire, soldered everything back together, waterproofed it, and put the pin back in.
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I tapped into all three wires at the coil. It has everything you need, power, ground, and coil negative. Tach is not powered when your thumb switch is off if you hook it up this way. I didn't bother with the high/low dimmer wire (Dakota Digital Tach). Works like a champ!
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Sorry, I was away.
I tapped the orange/white (accessory) wire going into the speedo for power, and the black for ground, then took off the fuel tank and ran one wire along the backbone to the deutche connector on the left side just above the left of the airbox, alongside the backbone. (There are photos in the service manual).
TOTOLANDMAN... You really should not have any problem. Find the ignition module, see the colored wires, tap in, run them up along the frame under the tank and to the instrument area. I covered by wires with some split loom tubing to dress it out. If you need to illuminate a light in the tach you can find whatever you need in the wire bundle going into the speedo. It's been too long for me to remember details but I found the color coded wire for my light in a diagram in the Shop Manual..
Installing a Tachometer on a Blast
Note: These instructions were gathered from the good folks at Westach and several posts here in on BadWeb, thanks to everyone. This is very easy installation, and will get you a good looking tachometer setup. Please know these instructions are for informational purposes only, I am not a trained mechanic, electrician, or professional of any sort. There are a million ways to tackle this task; this is the one I choose. I am not responsible for any use or misuse of this information. Following these instructions can cause serious injury or death 
. You should have a Blast Service Manual for your model year, and if you do, you saw the humor in that last statement. Things change with time so if my instructions stray from what Westach or your service manual says STOP and ask questions before you get in a jam. This assumes you have a stock Blast with the standard ignition module, if you have a custom or the SE module you may want to use a different method.
Shopping List:
Note: When ordering your tachometer please be sure to tell them how to paint your needle, also ask that they do not install the mounting screws in the back of the tach, they are too long for the cup and I had to cut mine off.
** Tachometer: Westach - 2CTAU8-2Z-NCW, Light Kit 186, $214.48 (inc shipping)
** Mounting Kit: PartsAmerica.com – AUM2204 $32.83 (inc shipping)
** 20 Gauge Single Conductor Wire about 3’ of Green, 3’ of Red, and 3’ of Black
** Soldering Gun & Solder
** Wire Stripper
** 20 Gauge Wire Clamps (the red ones)
** Black electrical Tape
** Small Black wire ties
** A drill press or a drill with a really steady hand
** 1/8” drill bit
** Vice grips
** Bolt Cutter or Grinder
The Tachometer:
1) Unpack all your stuff. The Tachometer comes with a wiring kit, a light bulb, some white tubes, and colored light bulb covers. The mounting kit should have the cup, a rubber grommet, a variety of screws, and a mounting bracket.
2) Warm up your soldering gun.
3) The wiring harness has a green, red, and black wire with bullet connectors with plastic shields at one end and stripped wire at the other. Let first install the light kit. Start by taking the large “A” tube, breaking it from the thin mold strip. Next slide the light bulb down the tube from top to bottom, firmly but carefully push the light bulb into place. The instructions ask to place an adhesive on the bulb to keep it in place. IMOH bulbs blow, let’s not make this permanent. Tie a knot with the two black wires; that will keep the bulb in and allow you to change it if necessary.
4) Next following the light kit instructions remove the black stopper from the bulb channel and carefully push the bulb and tube into the channel.
5) Remove the clear plastic shield from the bullet connectors, and solder one black wire from the light to the red wire bullet clamp, and the other to the black bullet clamp wire (be sure no to get any solder inside the bullet clamp itself) Once the solder cools replace the clear plastic shield.
6) Using the green wire for your signal (#2 in the Westach instructions), black for your ground (#5), and red for your 12VDC (#4) place all wires onto your tachometer.
The Bike Wiring:
There are 3 wire connections that the Tachometer needs, all three can be found just off the coil, all in one place. But, IMHO the tachometer functions more normally if you use a light power source instead of the coil. The coil power will only come on when the kill switch is off, this means once you turn your engine off the tachometer looses power. When it does it stays at whatever the last RPM’s were. Using a light source, the tachometer is at 0 when you kill your engine, and looses power when you turn your key. I choose not to use the accessory because it is on a 7.5 amp fuse; I figured to avoid blowing fuses use a 15 amp source.
1) Remove your bikes seat, and remove the negative cable from your battery. DON’T FORGET THIS STEP!
2) Follow your service manual instructions on how to remove the gas tank, and air filter port cover
3) Follow your service manual instructions on how to remove the dashboard/speedometer and how to remove your speedometer from the dashboard
4) Follow your service manual instructions on how to remove your wind screen.
5) Locate the coil/ignition socket connector along the frame of your bike on the clutch side of your bike
6) Be sure to check your manuals ignition wiring diagram to insure the wire colors have not changed. From here you are going to tap 2 wires. For my 05 it was the Pink (Signal), and the Black (Ground). With the soldering gun burn threw the pink and black wire shielding about 1/8 of an inch. With a small nail or the probes on your volt meter separate the exposed wires to form a hole.
7) Doing the Pink first take the 3’ of green 20 gauge wire and strip about a half inch. Loop the exposed wire threw the hole, twist and solder together. Using the black tape rap the exposed wire area.
8) Do the same for the Black wire using the 3’ of black wire.
9) Run the two wires through the existing black wire ties on the frame up through to the instrument panel.
(Ignore red wire, I tapped my coil 12VDC for a future project for a GPS!)
10) For the power we will use the light power wire which can be easily tapped from the left hand control wires. Follow the control wire to the connector and disconnect. Pull the rubber shielding back to expose the wires within. Take the blue wire WARNING: the 05 service manual states this wire is brown. Using the pin out number instead of the color cords, as well as testing with a volt meter proved it wrong, it is in fact blue. If there is any doubt volt meter test , and follow the same procedure above to expose a small amount of wire, split and solder (Red wire this time), finish with a wrap in black tape, run the new red wire through the rubber shielding and push rubber shielding back into place.
11) Re-attach control cable run new red wire with the green and black wires from the coil connection.
12) Replace your gas tank
The Dashboard Modification :
1) You should have already followed your service manual instructions on how to remove the dashboard/speedometer and how to remove your speedometer from the dashboard. Your dashboard should look like this (Do not drill holes yet!):
2) The parts we will be using from the mounting cup are labeled below:
3) Using a pair of vice grips take out the bends that are at each of the ends clamp. Then bend each end as close to the screw hole as possible flat so they will fit on your dashboard. Make sure the cup still fits into the clamp; trial fit the clamp, cup and tachometer against your dashboard bend if necessary.
4) Using a marker place a dot on the bottom half of your dashboard, then drill a 1/8” hole. Try to get the first hole as far down the dash as possible to avoid clutch cable space issues. (DO NOT DRILL BOTH HOLES UNTIL YOU HAVE THE FIRST ONE DRILLED AND TRIAL FITTED!)
5) Using one of the screws in the picture above screw the clamp to your dashboard. Trial fit your tachometer the key is to get a tight fit, with the cup and tachometer in place mark for your last hole, then drill.
6) The two screws that come with the mounting kit are going to have to be cut by about 1/8” to avoid scratching the speedometer when everything is reassembled. I used a pair of bolt cutters.
7) Before permanently assembling wrap a single pass of electrical tape around both the tachometer and the cup.
8) Reassemble the dashboard with new tachometer. Keep the top screw loose to make final adjustments once you get your dash installed on your bike
Final Install:
1) Replace the dashboard assembly on your bike,
2) Cut the excess wiring, and with the wire clamps clamp the tachometer wires to your source wires, then tape everything up.
3) Make the final adjustments to your tachometer and tighten the top screw.
4) Replace your windscreen, and your negative cable on your battery.
5) Turn you key, the tachometer should light up and go to zero.
6) Fire up your bike. You will notice a small delay, they it should report your RPM’s
Congrats!
Thanks to everyone who posted on this subject and let me know if there is anything I missed, I would like to keep good accurate instructions up to date.
Note: In closing I would like to have done a couple of things differently. 1) make the tachometer more removable with a wiring harness, 2) had Westach color the red line for me, 3) had Westach add a stop post at zero, 4) had Westach not install the mounting screws, 5) Run from system power source with dedicated in-line fuse, 6) get a longer clutch cable.
Note: Wiring is almost the same except the trigger is off the brown wire coming from the SE module. The brown wire is used exclusively for a tach.
Hopefully they read the SE instructions and didn't just swap pins in the Deutsch connector.
I am attaching the original Installation documentation for the J&P Cycles single fire tachometer from Zodiac/NL for any that are interested.
Cheers,
totolandman
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Ezblast
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 11:28 pm: | 
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They are for a twin, there is a lot of work to make one run on a single. Ebay has an adapter that does that - show me! - I wanna see! That would be cool.
EZ |
Ezblast
| | Posted on Thursday, April 01, 2010 - 12:24 am: |
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http://www.equus.com/Product/Detail/7988C0B8-0121- 429D-99D7-7B0DD14DBE08
And it will work with a single! Check its instructions out.
EZ |
Zendurance
| | Posted on Thursday, April 01, 2010 - 06:43 pm: |
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well, i've invested enough in it already, i guess it's time to learn a thing or two about tach conversions.
to make matters worse though, the bike wouldn't start this morning. the lights and dash all turn on as bright as ever, and all i hear is a very loud clicking. my first thought was battery (it's the original battery from 2001!!) but all the lights and such come on just fine. my other thought was a bad starter, but it was working fine the day before i wired the tach. my last thought was starter solenoid. any ideas? thanks |
Ezblast
| | Posted on Thursday, April 01, 2010 - 10:00 pm: |
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Check grounds for tightness and cleanness. Then charge battery, probably is battery, they get old after a few years, though some of us still have original batteries, most don't.
EZ |
Zendurance
| | Posted on Friday, April 02, 2010 - 11:34 am: |
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thanks for all the help EZ. i'll be working on it today. will post when i fixed it. |
Curvestealer
| | Posted on Sunday, June 13, 2010 - 01:17 pm: |
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i found a cheaper alternative thats great for tuning and looks good too.
go to jcwhitney.. they have an inductive tach for $72. it has a black face, and reads up too 8k. it is back-lit for night riding, and comes with some installation hardware.
im going to buy one for my bike.
for a glimps of what it looks like, go on youtube and search "2001 buell blast" you will see the vid. what it, you will see the owner crank the bike, and rev it a little, and the need settle right at 1200rpm.
btw i just bought my bike in may!! my thumper slays the road...lol |
Ezblast
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - 12:21 am: |
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Though the face on that tach is white - it is the Equiis Tach that is linked to above.
EZ |
Ezblast
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - 12:28 am: |
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BTW -
Welcome!
EZ |
Blackblue
| | Posted on Monday, July 16, 2012 - 06:35 pm: |
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So the scooter tach I ordered is no good - and while they're promising to send me a new one, I stumbled upon this:
Yamaha PN
eng-meter-4c-01
it's a digital tach/hour meter, with an inductive pickup. I'd get the Equus but the black face kills it for me; and it doesn't seem to be available in white face anywhere. 9k rpm limit, also doubles as an hour meter. This is an option I'm considering but not 100% sold on yet... just thought I'd share, but the engine meter runs just $40. |
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