Today, for the first time, I drove a 911S -76, that I'm thinking of buying.

The only thing that's kind of holding me back, is that the rev (rpm) meter seemed to behave a little funny. And I was wondering if this is normal or not?

Giving full throttle in second gear, and shifting near the rev limit, then when going into third gear (and not giving as much throttle anymore) the rev meter bounced up and down in an uncontrolled way all over the place... <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

 

This usually means the dwell is incorrect or the ignition points are going bad. The fibre follower of the points that runs on the distibutor lobes wears and the dwell goes out of spec. The fix is to reset the dwell and/or replace the points. Points are pretty cheap parts. There is also an internal damper within the tachometer gage that can fail and cause bouncing but the "wild" bouncing is usually the points. If not readjusted the dwell will get worse to the point the car will run poorly and begin to backfire. Cheers, Jim

 

I had this problem in my "80 SC. It turned out that the alternator was bad. The battery essentially lost it's charge, as the alternator was not charging it. A trickle charger would restore the charge so that it could be driven for a short distance (to the shop!).
Chris
'80 SC
'96 993

 

I had this problem with my '73 911E: I just replaced the points and the prob. went away.