AMC content

ok, here goes....

were stealing my friends car to finish it and give it back to him for his birthday. its an 1980 AMC Spirit AMX with a 302 ford and a t5 that had been swapped in a few years ago. been sitting for a while while he put time and effort into saving his marriage, then lost his job.

anyway, im going to fix the hack job wiring in the car, reinstall the interior, and fine tune the whole thing. hell, i may even inject it with a GM TBI setup i have in my parts bin.

what i need help with is making the tach read properly. it was origonally a six cyl car, and the tach hasnt been hooked up since the motor swap. (the shop that did the swap did a beautiful job if fabbing the mounts and exhaust, but a really bad one everywhere that wasnt the nuts and bolts)

i know theres some trick about soldering resisters, etc. in place, but thats about it. any suggestions or advoce will be greatly appreciated. I would love to keep the stock gauges to keep the budget down.

michael

I have no advice, but thats a cool thing youre doing for a buddy. I guess any reason to turn wrenches is a good one. I will say Sunpro makes tachs that are switch-able between cylinder counts (4-10 IIRC), and its just a little switch on the back, no wiring tricks necessary. I bought a 3.5" for like $60 for my Corolla 5spd whos OEM cluster had no tach, and loved it (shift light in the face and a really clear layout.

Also, if the new motor still has its OBD ports, theres gonna be a pin in one of the diagnostic ports that should make a mechanical tach run, thats how I got signal to my Sunpro, should work for others as well...YMMV.

good luck and post pics!!!

Try and get a factory V8 AMC tach/gauge cluster. The gauges use a printed circuit board and really don't convert well.

Good on you for helping your buddy. Let us know if you need anything!

Javelin wrote: The gauges use a printed circuit board and really don't convert well.

good to know!

at this point, i know im gonna need the tach (hes ricking an 80's sunpro special at the moment that goes wonky around 5k)

i also am going to need various interior parts. if any of y'all have some of the spirits amx's floating around for parts, let me know. may have to get some stuff from you.

i WILL post pictuires up when i get the car over here to start on it.

I believe Dakota Digital still sells a tach signal converter.

Dusterbd13 wrote: ok, here goes.... were stealing my friends car to finish it and give it back to him for his birthday. its an 1980 AMC Spirit AMX with a 302 ford and a t5 that had been swapped in a few years ago.

I guess that at the time he had this done he didn't know that an AMC 401 V8 would fit in there just as easy as the AMC 304 V8. Same size externally and nearly the same weight.

he had the drivetrain left over from when he redid a hot rodded mustang to stock. (factory GT car, went back numbers matching and bone stock)

hes really a ford guy, but the AMC was left to him by his grandfather. when he had gotten his liscence back, he didnt have a car. he had to sell his lightening to stay out of prison. so he got the AMC. we redid the chassis with poly bushings, lowering springs, sway bars, upgraded brakes, new shocks, got rid of the iso-clamps, etc. the origonal six lasted about 6 months of daily driving (about 6k). when it was using more oil than gas, he had another local shop so the swap, as i was busy saving my marriage and starting a family.

now its time to pay him back for all that is wife and him have done for us.

i do have some pictures from back then. but nothing of its current neglected state.

before, when he got it from his grandpa

after a lot of work in that same spot, in july in the south.

michael