Technical What Era Had Stewart Warner Semi Truck Gauges

I need some gauges for my project (bagged 60 ElCo) and a local big rig salvage yard is going out of business. They have an ad up with murky dark pictures of shelves and shelves full of semi truck gauge panels. I know next to nothing about big trucks but read somewhere that SW supplied gauges for some trucks at some point.

What era (if any) and brand of truck is likely to have gauges we can apply to our cars?

What am I likely to find that I could use? I know the tachs will be for diesels etc, but I imagine an amp meter is an amp meter.

I know the answer is to go there, but I’ll have to take time off work so I wanna make sure there’s a chance for pay dirt! I’m not after anything too rare or special, just old school USA black faced gauges with a chrome bezel.

 

Lots of trucks (please, not Semis*) used SW gauges. Peterbilt, Freightliner ect. Used them from the sixties to the eighties. I have used them in a lot of builds, temp, volt or amp, oil pressure, oil temp ect.

* a Semi is a type of trailer, pulled by a tractor.
I know details, details. Just a pet peeve, flame me if needed.

 

These were in my 55 pick up, they are from a Freightliner. The bezel is home made from aluminum angle.

 

One thing to watch out for when grabbing truck stuff, some of the tachs work backwards, zero on the right

 

‘68 IH Fleetstar big gas V8

 

Those look great. That’s exactly what I’m after. Maybe I’ll hit pay dirt without having to gamble on the auction site.

In terms of calling them semis, I’m happy to change my word choice. What should I call them, short of specific things like “logging truck” or cement truck? I’m in western Mt where “truck” or “diesel truck” mean pickup based vehicles and a “rig” can be just about anything with 4 or more wheels.

 

Thanks, I’ll watch out!

Awesome!

 

I grew up with these in my gramps' trucks, there used to be some great looking instruments in trucks

 

diesels to me is anything bigger than a pick up.
a diesel pick up is just a pick up with a diesel motor.
the ROUND Stewart warner gauges for big trucks (if you have an opportunity to buy these gauges for diesel big trucks) seems like it be a worthwhile investment IF the prices average one dollar per gauge.

 

I've dug cool gauges out of a lot of big rigs from the 50's to the 80's, one cool thing a lot of them have is dual needle air pressure gauges, which are great for air suspension since you can use one gauge for front and back, and single needle pressure gauges are good for the tank. Tachs and speedos tend to have low top ends on them but the other stuff is pretty interchangeable. Lots of cool pedals and shifters in old trucks too, and occasionally early AM/FM radios pulled out of wrecks from the junkyard and transplanted. Also shitloads of good aircraft style toggle switches and indicator lights if you can use any of that.

Hard to say what specific make/model/year to look for though, most of the best stuff I found was stuff that was added onto the truck later on. Factory gauges or radio or whatever failed and new stuff got put in, straight out of the same catalogs and stores that the hot rodders were shopping from.

 

That erroneous thinking might whack you if you're shopping for truck tachs, in the old days there were many, many pretty heavy trucks with big gas engines, and the gas engine tachs would usually read out to 4K, while a typical Diesel tach might read to 3K. We used to have an International Fleetstar with a 549 gasser, and it would keep up with most of the Diesels of the day, and spank some of them. The 534 Ford was another one that could step down the highway, as would the 501 6-cylinder, at lower RPM

 

In terms of calling them semis, I’m happy to change my word choice. What should I call them, short of specific things like “logging truck” or cement truck? I’m in western Mt where “truck” or “diesel truck” mean pickup based vehicles and a “rig” can be just about anything with 4 or more wheels.[/QUOTE]

I think traditional term is “Road Tractors or just Tractors” but those seem to be almost ancient today. My dad had a company that hauled oil rigs throughout Saskatchewan, Alberta, and into the US and if I called them trucks I got a real education! LOL

 

Wow! I have the exact gauge cluster that I picked up $10.00 a couple of years back. I’d like to find the two jewels or lights. And I guess I could use the “primer” fo an electric fuel pump! But what make are those gauges? I’ve tried to find out but no luck...

 

@Fortunateson PM me, I have some of that IHC stuff including the lights.

 

Old truckers never die.....they just get a new Peterbilt...

 

The Big Rigs from the 50`s had SW domed lenses. They used to bring big bucks a few years ago. I`m sure they still do.

 

@lewk Which yard is it? I might check it out.

 

Some of those gauges may be 24 volt also.

 

This dash panel is a Stewert Warner panel used in Peterbilt trucks from 1949 till about 1962, also used in Chris Craft boats, Crown School buses and most likely a few others, the curved glass gauges were used in Peterbilts from 49 to the mid fiftys .

These gauges were used in the 39 to 48 Peterbilts

 

Saskatchewan, Alberta, and into the US and if I called them trucks I got a real education! LOL[/QUOTE]

In 20 years of living the life, the term most used was simply BIG TRUCK

 

I snuck away today and went to the BIG TRUCK place and dug around. He had a lot of stuff and his prices were right. I’m sure I missed some stuff but I did OK. There were some oil temp gauges I should have grabbed, but I forgot pliers.



Everyone needs a footometer for measuring their footos.

 

Big Sky Truck & Equipment in Missoula. Super friendly guy. The crusher is coming in the next couple weeks and he’s got to be off the property Jan 1st. I was only on the gauge area, but there’s a lot of stuff out there.

 

Wow, that's a great collection of gauges! If that were closer I'd be digging through that stash pretty hard. If it all has to get moved or scrapped it'd be a shame to lose any cool old stuff, even if you just got it for resale. Probably a huge stash of add-on turn signal switches too, they were common in big rig trucks.

 

I started on a '52 Kenworth. Had nice SW gauges. Moved up to a '70 and had the same nice SW gauges. Have no idea what's in the newer trucks. Probably chinese digital junk.

 

About 10 years ago I got to know one of the owners of a big truck yard in Colchester, Connecticut. He pretty much gave me free reign in the yard. He would lock the gate with me inside when he had to make a school bus run. I got some gauges, but better for me at the time, I got quite a few 682-C, Guide headlights. He didn't place a lot of value on the lights and gauges as he was more interested in selling big truck parts.

 

I miss the old Chris Craft... She had a Chevrolet 348. The exhaust sound bubbling in the water was the coolest sounding exhaust I ever heard.

 

I'm with you, bud. One of my pet peeves also.

 

Last pic. 4 x 4? 5 x 4?

 

I think traditional term is “Road Tractors or just Tractors” but those seem to be almost ancient today. My dad had a company that hauled oil rigs throughout Saskatchewan, Alberta, and into the US and if I called them trucks I got a real education! LOL[/QUOTE]
No such thing as a "cement truck", they're concrete trucks. I learned that real fast from my late son-in-law who was a concrete contractor. Cement is that stuff in a tube you glue model cars and airplanes together with.

 

Not so sure about that. I worked for Calaveras Cement Co for 12 years producing CEMENT. Hauled thousands of tons to batch plants where they mixed it with sand, rock and water to make CONCRETE.