Well it looks like you are right too eh dude?

I guess however though this 'wriring harness' that you mention for the 1200s...doesn't apply for the utes ?

Most ute owners pull out their clock and replace it with the coupe tacho... etc

The only wires that are there (as i discovered myself) are the wires for the clock... There are definately no wires waiting for a tacho??

The guy who made the original post described that he was battling with a ute ...

I guess the conversion would be plain sailing if there was wires jst waiting for you to hook up... but yeh, this doesn't apply to the ute...

Cheers

Hi guyz. Thanx for all the help you are sending in on the tacho.
It seems as though I have opened up a can of worms here.

As it stands I still havent got it working yet as all this info has become rather confusing.
I have made progress in locating some wires etc so I'll let you all know where Im at and hopefully will get this thing sorted out soon.
I'll keep it nice and simple.

1. I have found the 2 B/W wires at the back of the tacho.(they were looped together with 2 spade terminals.)I have disconnected the loop so I now have to wires that need to be connected up to something.

2. I am not sure whether the tacho was installed to replace the clock or if it is a coupe dash as it was in there when I bought the vehicle but it is datsun tach.

3. I still stand by the fact that there are 2 more wires at the back of the tacho. One is yellow/red trace with a bullet style connector(factory), the other is black with a spade terminal(appears factory also). Maybe these were for the clock or something but they are still there and do come out the rear top right corner of the tacho.

4. There are also the two illumination globe wires (obviously) they are red/green trace.

5. Now to the engine bay : coil + ( has two wires coming off it 1 is black/white trace the other is black/red trace.
coil - (has one black wire coming of it obviously to the dizzy.)

6. Resistor has One blk/white wire off either side.


Would there be the wires behind the dash loom or in the engine bay to connect up to?
Or will I have to run 2 new wires?

Thanx Guyz dont let me down.

I have never had this much trouble with a bloody tacho before

Datopower i am sorry to hear you dont have the wires in your ute from factory.
I am an Auto Electrician by trade and when I used to work in a shop I found that this was always the case with datsuns 1200's and 120y's. This also includes 3 - 4 1200 utes of which I have rewired.
I wouldn't think that nissan would change there wiring loom either because it was a NZ model or a ute. ( sounds strange to me!)
One thing I will say is I am not sure if late model utes are included in what I am saying!
I do know for sure that 2 of the utes I did were early models the others I am not certain about.
Is your ute a later model 1200 Datopower?
Or maybe a previous owner has had wiring done and the wires are now taped over?
In the shop I worked it was quite common for us or me to work on dattos! The boss always gave them to me as he knew I liked Dattos, and the dash swap is one of the most common things most 1200 owners wish to do. ( I am sure everybody would agree. ) I also found that we did many dattos as when a datto owner sees a bright yellow 1200 or a 1000 wagon out the front of an Auto Electrician, they are more inclined to take their car to this shop as they know someone inside respects Datsuns.
( Atleast this is what I found and my customers said at the time!)

Now Buff it sounds like your engine bay is ok so I sujest that nothing needs to be done in here.
Inside is where the work is to be done!
I understand I think, what you are saying now of these colours of which i said do not exist.
( You are saying that they come out of the tacho itself, not the wiring harness!)
I think you will find someone has put these there, but this is ok because you do need them! Where they are coming from is a white plastic piece of the tacho to the right, This has three sections, Two with nuts on them and one with nothing.
The centre one I am guessing has the yellow / red wire? yes? and the top one is the black wire? yes? If not change them to this way!
Now look at the back of the speedo and you will see right next to the tacho is a male bullet terminal, this is where the yellow /red wire needs to be connected. ( This is a power supply to the tacho)
Now the black wire goes on the next flat round terminal directly above, on the back of the speedo ( It should slide on and lodge itself into position!)
Don't make a mistake and connect the black wire to the flat square terminal!
Now that part is sorted.
Next on the left side of the tacho you will see a smaller nut on a metal strip ontop of another piece of white plastic. If you look the plastic will have a hole through it sideways, this is where a piece of black / white wire should be! but it sounds like it is not there!
You need to get a short length of wire
( any colour will do)
and as I think Datopower originally stated you need to make a loop. First feed the wire through this hole, then bring this wire back over the top and feed it through again. Now get the 2 black / white wires you have found , disconnect them and connect one of them to one side of this loop you have made , and the other one to the other side of the loop!
Now start the car and look at the tacho, If it works congradulations on a job well done.
But if it doesn't dont worry just disconnect the 2 black / white wires and swap their positions on the loop wire.
Now once again start the car and the tacho should work.
( Now it is working double check your connections of the 2 black / white wires and the loop are good and either solder them or use terminals!( also insulate them with tape if needed) If any part of this loop breaks the car will not start, so be certain!)

Now proceed to GO and collect your $200 and then give this to me! lol.

Cheers Mate,
Steve

Tell me if you have trouble or still don't understand!

Hey Phunkdoktaspok,

I'm back again and unfortunately I cant tell you that it is working yet!

Heres the deal : Your description of the rear of my tacho is perfect. 2 wires on right . 1 black the other one below red/yellow. ok. the red/yellow one has a bullet connector but the black one has a spade type terminal. so we are both on the same track at this point.
Now the loop section with the b/w wires also appears to be untouched from factory and fine.
Its looped through the hole and back on to itself,
with the factory type spade connections complete with protective sleeve. It doesn't appear as this has been messed with at all.
So as far as the tacho goes everything seems ok.

So from what I can gather is that I now only have 2 wires that need to be hooked up to get the tacho to work. The red/yellow wire and the black wire that we spoke about before. Am I correct?

This is were the difficulties creep in.
Your description of the back of the speedo appears different to what I can see.
I will describe the rear of the speedo.

Looking at the speedo from behind with cluster still in car. The rear of tacho being to the right of speedo.
1. speedo cable entering centre of speedo
2. To the right of speedo cable I have (working from the bottom up: a male bullet connector(part of speedo) :then, another male bullet connector the same (also part of speedo).
These two connectors already have wires running of them into a small box mounted on a bracket near the speedo cable(back of speedo)
-the bottom one has green wire running back into box.
-the one above has a red wire running back into box.
-the other black wire coming out of this box appears to run back over towards the oil press/temp guage area.
Now thats the bullet connectors described.
Also on the back of the speedo obove these bullet connectors are as follows.
-1 spade terminal with the two red/green wires coming off going to the two cluster globes on top of tach.
-& 1 more spade terminal above this one which appears to run to the left indicator pilot light in dash.

I tried disconnecting the red wire from back of speedo and connecting the red/yellow wire from tach to this male connector.
After doing this I checked with test light and had power at tacho but was still left with where di I put the black wire with spade terminal?????
What is the little box near the speedo cable?

And more importantly
WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE???????????????????

I have just finished doing my ute. I have connected one end of the black and white wire to the + side of my coil, and the other end to the ignition feed into the back of the fuse box. You could use the ignition at the key as well.Hope this helps.

firstly glad we are getting somewhere!
But sadly you worry me when you talk of the black / white loop!
The way you describe it is that it is one wire running in a loop and joining back to itself while it swings in the breese.
If this is the case you have it wrong!
You need this loop black/white wire and you need to look dirrectly behind the tacho gauge at the wiring harness, here you should find taped in a bit of coloured tape another black/white wire, it will have connections in it , and to this you join the looped black/white wire.

Now the other wires.
I dont know what the box is as i cant see it.

Simple and easy way to tell you how to do it is :
The black wire connect to ground.( earth, body etc)
The red / yellow connect to 12V ignition supply( 12volts when the ignitiion is on and 0volts when it is off)