36,37,38 temperature gauge rework

Does any body know of a new style temperature gauge I could retrofit into my 38 ford pickup gauge panel that would fit in the original location with minor work needed to the gauge face and still closely match the existing gauge colors?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Do you have a picture of the hole, and measurements? If you're looking for aftermarket, a lot of different colors and designs are available these days. I used Dolphins in my '37 Plymouth, with a tan backround and a thin needle, and it gives them an older look.

 

Look at it differently...look only at the back of the possible gauges for fit. Innards will likely be small so you can probably also trim the bacj of the case a bit, or even transfer the innards into your old cas using only the bit of tin the innards attach to from the new gauge. The arm from the newgauge can then just be positioned to point through the slit in the old face, and the old pointer can be affixed to the new one.

 

Don't know of a new style gauge, but I'm still using the bulb thermometer in my 37 w/ an SBC, and it works great.

 

Use the old gauge if you can. They are easily repaired if the bulb was cut off.

 

The gauge that I have had most success with as far as transplanting into early housings is auto meter. The inner workings are nice and compact, and they are available in several different faces and colors. so fat I have used these to update clusters in both a '51 Ford and a '49 Olds. I just used the backing plates for the original gauges and trimed to fit the Auto meter movment. Real simple.

 

Thanks for all the great ideas. You guys are great.
I love this site!

 

These are the bulb types. And can be retrofited in some fashion. Some of the 35-36's have a much longer tube to reach the front waterpumps on that 35-36 application.
I installed one of these on my 37 coupe because it required a longer tube to the mounting location of the 8ba in place of the 21 bolt.
The 35-36 bulbs did not fit exactly the same but I was able to get it to fit in the mounting tabs securely.

 

Repairing the old is an excellent but fairly expensive propositio, UNLESS you search here for the do it yourself article! Now if you do that...or
put in the innards of a modern gauge so that the needle swings up in down in the slot area where the gl*** resided...you have motion where you need it but marks that have an unknown relationship with temperature. so either way borrow or buy a cheap mechanical gage when car is running and use it for a while so you know what your gauge positions mean in actual numbers.
I have a '32 tube type gas gauge around with a 1936 (maybe) electrical gauge crudely grated in about as above...for a while (I must have been off my meds...) I thought about using an electric gas gauge as a gantry to pull a red pipecleaner up and down the tube. Well, gotta get back to my nuclear piano project.