Mechanical tachometer

[colina]

Hi all,
Has anyone had any recent experience of the ebay 'made in India' repro smith's tachos (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192886058838)?
I see that these were mentioned in posts a few years ago and no one seemed to say they were a disaster. I'm happy to accept that they are unlikely to be perfect (and also happy to wait for shipping).
thanks
Colin

[Howard Wright]

Hi Colin

I tried one of these a couple of years ago.  To be fair it worked quite well apart from the fact that it was the wrong distributor speed (I took the feed from a slot in the bottom of the distributor shaft).  I tried some dodges like printing different dials but decided this approach wasn’t very accurate. In the end I bit the bullet and bought one of Willie Mackenzies electronic jobs.  

Cheers

Howard

[MartinH]

I bought a speedo of the same pattern from an Indian eBay seller for a non-Austin application. The odometer has worked perfectly but the Speedo waved about a bit for the first few hundred miles and has now jammed at 30mph. I haven't stripped it down but assume that the spinning disc component (drag cup ?) has collided with the driven parts. I am not too fussed and have left it in place as a functional odometer. You get what you pay for and for less than 20 quid delivered I didn't expect much.