Tiny Tach and Lighted Switches

Carl (woodlandfarms) told me about the Tiny Tach and I saw how he installed his so he gets all the credit. A big thanks to Carl because this is a very nice modification to do. The Tiny Tach lets you know your RPMs and it has two maintenance countdown clocks and an hour meter. I bought the 6 mm size to fit the Deutz fuel lines and I bought it with a 12′ cable so I would have more length than I needed (again thanks to a suggestion from Carl).


Here’s a picture of the Tiny Tach installed on the dash. I forgot to take a picture of the sender unit mounted on the fuel line but you can look at Carl’s. I will try to remember to add one. Since I did not want to have to remove the dash and all of the gauges, I mounted mine very similar to Carl’s. The only change I made was, rather than grinding slots in the dash for the wires, I cut a piece of rubber to go under the tach and then cut slots in the rubber to let me bend the wires back under and through the original hour meter opening.

Here’s a picture showing the new light switches I added. I thought about adding an angled box and then mounting some face rocker switches on that so the switches were facing the operator. Then I saw these switches. They light up when on and would be very easy to operate with gloves on. I was concerned about branches, etc. hitting them so I added a bracket in front of them to protect them. The bracket was just a piece of metal I had sitting around. We’ll see how well the switches hold up. If necessary, I can replace them with lighted push button switches. 

The switches from left to right control the air intake manifold glow plugs, the flashing yellow light so it is not on all the time, future rear and interior lights mounted to the canopy, and my newly wired front lights installed under the canopy. The switch for the flashing lights takes the power from the rear terminal box. The rest of the switches get their power from a relay controlled 30 Amp fused power line from the battery. The relay is controlled by the key switch. The switches are located on the left side because that was where I wanted them and also there happens to be room underneath that area for all the connections, etc.

I subsequently decided it was not a good idea to have a toggle switch for the glow plugs in case the switch accidently got knocked and turned them on for an extended period. So I replaced it with a momentary on push button switch:

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