Pete Whitstone Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 While I think the stock 81 gauge cluster looks cool, I wanted something different for my truck. I was also concerned about old sensors, wire and gauges accumulating inaccuracies. So I replaced everything including all the wiring. I used the Vision series of gauges from VDO, and robbed a monster tach off my old race car. For monitoring air/fuel, I used a pair of Innovate gauges, since there were no Vision gauges available. Very few analog A/F gauges available at all, and I'm not sure of the "needle lag" of the ones that are available. So those are digital. This is all in preparation for road trials on the truck, gotta know what's going on under the hood. I started with a sheet of 0.1" aluminum for the dash face, and arranged the gauges into it in a manner that would fit in the stock gauge cluster opening. I sanded off the flaking old wood grain from the stock cluster surround and cleaned it up in general. The sheet of aluminum and the cluster surround were painted with SEM Trim Black. Here is a test fitting. The dash face is held to the surround with 6 8-32 screws. I used taper headed allen screws, and cut a countersink in the aluminum so they are nearly flush. They do stick up a little bit, but I like it. Gauges are all nicely visible from the driving position. Powered it up and everything electrical worked (never mind the gas gauge, no sender hooked up yet). The red light left of speedo is oil pressure, the yellow light on the right is alternator warning. I have to figure out how to hook that up. A different view. The speedo does not work, not sure what that's about. I pulled the cable out of the transmission and hit it with the drill, still no movement so it has to be where the cable connects to the speedo - there is an adapter in there to go from the push-on style to the 5/8" threaded style that the speedo has. I plan to do the same blackout treatment to the radio and heater control surround eventually, but that's not really neccesary for getting it on the road, so it will wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gearhead Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 Nice job. Looks great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sac79 Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 :nabble_smiley_good:Something different. LMC have some similar looking gauges available now. What is that attached to the tach? The thing that looks like a tactical scope... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Whitstone Posted June 13, 2020 Author Share Posted June 13, 2020 :nabble_smiley_good:Something different. LMC have some similar looking gauges available now. What is that attached to the tach? The thing that looks like a tactical scope... Big old bright "shift" light. I should probably find the cap/shade that goes on it for night use, lest I find myself at the top of my RPM range and blind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sac79 Posted June 13, 2020 Share Posted June 13, 2020 Big old bright "shift" light. I should probably find the cap/shade that goes on it for night use, lest I find myself at the top of my RPM range and blind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 Looks good! The Innovate gauges go to the different banks of the engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArdWrknTrk Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 That fuel bezel painted up nice! Maybe consider oval head screws, if the flatheads look harsh to you? Individual round gauges sure change the Bullnose dash. Yours is an incredibly finished look! I imagine that first drive can't come fast enough now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzFace2 Posted June 14, 2020 Share Posted June 14, 2020 That fuel bezel painted up nice! Maybe consider oval head screws, if the flatheads look harsh to you? Individual round gauges sure change the Bullnose dash. Yours is an incredibly finished look! I imagine that first drive can't come fast enough now. Looks nice. That silver one did paint up good. I did https://www.speedhut.com/ custom gauges in another project but wanted them to look stock till you looked close at them and seen 160 MPH speedo, a 4 in 1 large gauge like the speedo, etc. and they have the make & model of the car printed on the face. Dave ---- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Whitstone Posted June 14, 2020 Author Share Posted June 14, 2020 The Innovate gauges go to the different banks of the engine? Gary, that's correct, there's one sensor in each exhaust side, about 24 inches past the head. I know a lot of people only monitor one bank of a V engine, but I just can't bring myself to completely trust that. And in fact you can see just at idle that the banks are .3 off from each other. Not a huge difference, but it is different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Whitstone Posted June 14, 2020 Author Share Posted June 14, 2020 That fuel bezel painted up nice! Maybe consider oval head screws, if the flatheads look harsh to you? Wait, what? How did you know the bezel on the fuel gauge was painted? Or are you talking about something else? I did end up ordering the wrong fuel gauge, with a chrome ring instead of a black one. You can see that it is a slightly different style bezel than the others. When it arrived I was too lazy to exchange it and wait for another one, so I just hit it with the same paint as the dashboard face. I actually planned to use button-headed allen screws when I first set out to do this, but I didn't have any laying around. I had a bunch of the ones I did use, from my Lancia 037 Stradale project... I actually like the look of the flatheads, I'm not sure if I will change them or not. The inspiration for the dashboard actually came from the 037 project. That one used later Fiat 124 gauges, but the effect is similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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