Snap On Tach Dwell Meter

[246gts]

I just bought a Snap On Tach Dwell Meter MT 816 on eBay.
Unfortunately it didnt come with any instruction but for £1 what can you expect!
Do any of you guys know where I can get a set of these instructions?
Dave

[billymade]

I would contact Snapon customer service: http://buy1.snapon.com/snapon-store/customer.asp
Further down the page the have a # for "snapon equipment service"; looks like they might be the ones to call....

[Elroy]

No instruction actually needed. Red on the point side of the coil and black to ground. Hooks up just like EVERY dwell tach ever made. Double the 8 cylinder reading when using on a four cylinder.

[billymade]

246gts, you working on anything that has a carb and points?

[246gts]

246gts, you working on anything that has a carb and points?

Fraid so. I have a few old BMC variants from 50's and 60's which all use the points set up so maybe at some time I can use the meter to set the points accurately.

How does this work on cars with twin points??

Dave

[Elroy]

How does this work on cars with twin points??

Dave

Well you better get back on E-bay and find some more meters because in that case you need a meter for each coil. Maybe that's a meter for each cylinder:dunno:

Scratch that, You're going to need a meter for each cylinder multiplied by the number of lugs nuts.:headscrat

Actually it depends on the design of the point cam. Dwell / Tach still hooks up the same.:bowdown:

[Elroy]

Isolate the points

Set the dwell first then the timing

Points wide plugs narrow.

[goodfellow]

Isolate the points

Set the dwell first then the timing

Points wide plugs narrow.

Isolate with a piece of thick paper, or thin plastic. Some cars have primary and secondary point sets which require different dwell settings --

[246gts]

Problem solved!

Just a quick e mail to Customer Services site on the Snap On web page and next day I receiived a pdf of the original instructions.

Now thats what I call service!!

Incidentally in the Manual there are tune up specifications for some 70's American cars if anyone is interested

Dave

[billymade]

How about some pics of your meter/manual? We are pic freaks here... love to "see" what you got! :)

[246gts]

How about some pics of your meter/manual? We are pic freaks here... love to "see" what you got! :)

Not much to show I'm afraid, just a small red box with a dial and a paper manual.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b392/246gts/snaponbox003-1.jpg

[Harris62]

I just acquired an old MT 418 Tach Dwell Meter. This one has 3 leads, a black, a red and a yellow. I attach the red to the positive + side of coil, black to ground and yellow to low side of coil and the dwell works great. Good steady needle. I cannot get rpm's when I switch the knob to rpm's.

How do I hook up for RPM's? I don't want to do something wrong and damage the unit.

Thanks,
Lou

[billymade]

246gts, contacted Snapon and they emailed him the users manual; contact Snapon at the above links and they should do this for you as well, good luck! :)

[Harris62]

Thanks. I did e-mail Snap On using your link and Nichole replied that they didn't have information on the MT 418, so I replied back asking her to look again and/or ask a really old employee.

lou

[MAD]

I just acquired an old MT 418 Tach Dwell Meter. This one has 3 leads, a black, a red and a yellow. I attach the red to the positive + side of coil, black to ground and yellow to low side of coil and the dwell works great. Good steady needle. I cannot get rpm's when I switch the knob to rpm's.

How do I hook up for RPM's? I don't want to do something wrong and damage the unit.

Thanks,
Lou

I would guess that the proper configuration would be black to ground and one of the other wires to the coil (-) for tach/dwell. You should only need two wires conected at a time to read dwell or tach (based on the meters I have used).

My guess would be that the yellow wire is used for tach/dwell function and perhaps the red lead is used for testing voltage.

If there is no voltage scale on the meter I would expect the red lead should be connected to the battery (+)

I don't have have a meter like yours so this is just a guess.

[Harris62]

Thanks,

If I connect red to battery + and black to ground, can I safely use the yellow to the + side of the coil for RPM's? The tach I have on the car runs off the + side of the coil.

Lou

[Harris62]

Nichole Morgan at Snap On customer service e-mailed me the manual late this afternoon. Definately nice people.

Thanks Guys

[billymade]

Cool, glad you got the manual! Your all set now! :)

[Harris62]

By the way, the manual on this particular meter instructs you to attach the red lead to + on the battery and the black to ground (not the negative - battery post) and 18" away from the battery.

Haven't tried it yet on the car, but my red and black lead connections pereviously on the coil were close together and I didn't get an RPM reading.

Thanks again for the help