I cannot believe VW sold stickshift Vanagons without a tach in the early 80's.

Even sillier is that they used great dashboard real estate for a
clock instead of a tach!  I'd rather have a tach than a clock!!

I looked into changing the right pod to a late model tach, but it
seemed a little tricky.

Instead, I decided to go for the $20 Walmart tach....yeah, I know VDO
is better but the $20 one works fine... for now at least.

It turned out pretty good and was very easy to install:
http://www.pauldottrip.com/84vanagon/tach/tach.html