Tachometer cable for 356A Carrera?

[Jack Walter]

I've seen reference in another thread that the tachometer cable for a Carrera is longer than the one for a push rod car - is that correct?
It looks like the outer housing of my original cable has a slight kink in it which keeps the inner shaft from engaging both ends of the drive - it seems to be about 8mm too short.

Does anyone know if the cable listed for the Carrera 2 sold by various vendors will work on an "A" car - the original cable has a braided housing on the aft end where the new ones sold for the Carrera 2's have the black housing for the entire length.
I can't be sure I have the right part number for a new 356A Carrera tachometer cable. The one in the car now is original and looks different from tach cables I've seen in other cars.


My tach works very intermittently and it seems its because the outer housing has been stretched enough so the inner shaft can't properly engage the drive on the RH upper camshaft and the tachometer at the same time.
I'd really like to get this working properly and it looks like big fun to snake a new housing up through the tunnel.

[Brad Ripley]

See http://www.stoddard.com/64474131102-nla.html for tach drive cable for all 4-cam engines in series production cars (both LHD and RHD). That cable goes over the transmission the drive on the back of cyl 1 + 2. It's 3640 mm long. AFAIK, the early versions were constructed just like in the photo link above.

By comparison the cable for all pushrod engines is 4001 mm long.

[Jack Walter]

Thanks guys - I ordered the 3640mm cable from Stoddard tonight - will hopefully get it swapped out this week.
From the descriptions it seems that someone might have gone to the trouble of putting a push rod cable in the car when they did the engine swap back in the 1960's.