Mercury 15hp 2 stroke tachometer

[TB-MARINE05]

Hi all, I bought a 1998 Mercury 15up [ELRC] 2 stroke a few months ago for my 12ft fishing boat project. I have slowly been taking apart, cleaning, painting and reassembling this outboard as it was in bad shape when I bought it. Up until now I was under the impression that this outboard was tachometer gauge compatible (via the 5 pin plug that goes from the control box to the tach gauge), however I recently read that it’s only the 1999& newer models that have the tachometer module. This is annoying as I bought an expensive tachometer online to match my Speedo. People keep saying I should use a tinytach but to me that would be a last resort as I want to use my new tach gauge.

I’ve found the tach module from a 1999 model of my engine on eBay (I’ll attach photos below) is there any way I can retro-fit the tach module into my engine? And can anyone give me some tips, tricks or advice? Many thanks, Toby.

 

[sam am I]

Your 98, manual start or electric start? And of either kind of start type, do you have two wires (gray and yellow) coming from the stator (red or black) that either go to and stop at a terminal block or feed a rectifier or feed a voltage regulator?