For your consideration, my humble tech week posting. How to Re-Gauge your stock housing for tightwads There are spectacular new gauges you can buy, but I'll try anything once. So, let's peek inside the stocker. This is the original gauge out of my 50 chevy sedan. Everything is 6 volt still and the speedo makes a wicked grinding noise. As you can see, all the different gauges are just ***embled up inside a housing. Looks easy enough, right? Here is a pic of a few stockers next to the guts out of really cheap gauges I have lying around. Looking good still! After a bit of shopping around, I found these gauges at my local Checker / Pepboys for what I think is a reasonable price. Under $20 each for the small ones and $55 for the speedo, and they have actual numbers on the faces! The font isn't the greatest, but the numbers are translucent which backlight really nicely. Let's pry it open and see what we've got! Work your way around the bezel with a little screw driver and pry it off. Here is a closeup of the 2 speedos next to each other. Still looking good! The faces are really close to the same size. I had to do a bit of t******* on the original speedo housing to clear the trip reset gear. Oh YEA! it even fits inside an unaltered housing!
DOH! The best laid plans........ The sweep of the new gauges are quite a bit larger than the old ones But wait, it gets worse! The new matched set of gauges are built entirely different compaired to the old ones I had lying around This prevents me from retaining the original gauge layout. I just can't squeeze them together enough to make it work. Oh well, I've already ruined 2 of them, so might as well forge ahead. Here you can see the new back panel I made from some plastic plate. I also cut out the back of the original housing. Here is the back of the new panel I made. I don't have to worry about the electronics shoring out using plastic. The larger holes are for the bulb holders for back lighting. Since I couldn't use the original front plate, I used Solidworks to design up a new one. This is just a paper cutout for now. Thankfuly we are busy at work lately, but I've gota wait for some mill time to do government work Here is the final design, There will be a little circular relief milled on the back that will receive the plastic face spacers and give me just enough clearance for a 3/32" piece of plexigl*** I picked up at home despot. The text you see will be milled into the back of the plexigl*** (mirrored). When the back lighting is on, some light will leak into the plexigl***, and the text will shine just like the original painted gl***. I'm also toying with the idea of placing 2 small LED's aimed at the < for turn indicators.
Wow, I did about the same thing a couple days ago. I have a '60 somthing Willys wagon that I wanted new 12V gauges in, sent pics to a well known gauge restorer and was told $3000 -$3800, about fell over getting that bid! Anyway went to my parts supplier and did like you, picked up some $20 gauges but unlike you I had to have the electronic speedo for the 700R trans. Total price of the gauges $300 with senders and 1/2 a days work .........................
Sure do, 7072 or PA 8621369 brigrat, your's looks great! and a lot easier than mine turned out to be. If everything goes well this week, I should be able to have the HAAS to myself Friday.
i am using the same equus gauges to retro fit my 66 f100, the sweep is a little bit to much but its better than the way the dash is now, full of sport comps leftover from another truck. the autometers just dont look right in it.
Nice work guys. I know how tough retrofitting gauges can be, I've done a few projects of my own too (with varied results). I recently submitted the application to be an approved Alliance vendor for HAMBers, with a 10% discount, so that should be posted soon. If you're not aware, we have a direct fit cluster that fits the 49-51 Fords, 49-50 Chevys and the 61-66 F100 (and early Bronco). Anyway, I thought this added value to this post, so I apologize in advance if this comes across as spam.
The gauges in my merc are shot and I am going to do the same thing. I have been p***ively looking for them. I have found an oil and temp that will work. They are old SW with the really thin needle like the orig 50 stuff.
OH, Sure......now your an alliance vendor LOL just kidding. I did find your gauges, very nice pieces. I'm not knocking your, or anyones parts (well except the dakoda digital ones ) And I just might pony up one day for really pritty ones.
Nice job, Thats really all there is to it, except for the dials. That is exactly how our company got started! Alot of work, but well worth it if you can do it yourself. Let me know if you want dials done, I can refer you to the screen shop we use. Mark
Woohoo!! Nicely done! A couple of years ago I adapter the gauge cluster from late 90's GMC full sized fan to fit the housing in my 1949 Ford truck. I bought the van cluster for $10 at the pull-a-part. I bought a few cold cokes for the guys at the local plastic supplier and they let me take some drops of clear acrylic and black acrylic. I put the whole thing together for less than $20. This is not the best pic in the world Here's another shot Bobby
Thanks guys, just proves there is more than 1 way to skin a cat I'll see what I can do about those pics.
Thanks, this is a great post, the pics are good, it's nice being able to see the details up close, but it's a ***** having to scroll back and forth to see the whole thing. Would be nice if there was a way to have both, like cake and eating it too. This has inspired me to put gauges in place of the idiot lights in the stock cluster on my '65 Riviera, should be able to do a similar type thing. I was wondering how I could put gauges in without a bunch of under-dash brackets; looks fine on a compe***ion type car, but not a luxo-custom.
There's a number of later model vehicles I'd grab a junkyard cluster and gut for this kind of thing that would work equally well. Closest yard to me gets $20 for a complete cluster. Something like an 90-91 Suburban would give you an electric speedo that would fit a lot of round housings and at least three small gauges to go with it.
Whelp, there resized, I aim to please (just ask my wife LOL) I'm glad it helped. What would you do differently? I've played with the layout for a month, and just couldn't come up with a better solution. [shrug] Meh, I like it. Just wait till the face is painted. I'm going to do a metalic black to match the dash, I'm even thinking about getting it pinstriped, that will fill in some of the blank areas. Thommy!
Whelp, I was able to play with the CNC today, and we were able to get the aluminum face plate machined. Hopefully we'll have some time next week to do the plexi. I've got some sanding to do before I paint it. Anyhow, here is a lit up pic. I think a few of the bulbs are brighter than others? Sorry, can't resize the pic on this computer.
its not so much the entire thing doesnt look good, what i meant was the gauges you used have too modern of a look to them. the lettering and needle style doesnt match the art deco style of the rest.
Got it done. Milling the text on the plexi was a bit tricky trying to not scratch it at all. The text lights up nicely. Everything works, and I'm happy! Anyhow, Hope someone finds it usefull.
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