Stewart Warner Vintage Wings gauge question

I was thinking about running vintage SW wings gauges in my Deuce sedan. I found a SW hollywood panel filled with SW vintage wings gauges. The panel is VERY nice, possibly NOS and the gauges are equally as nice. It has three switches and an ignition switch with key that is new. The wings tach is cable driven. I have a couple of questions:

1) Are all Vintage wings SW tach cable driven, or is there an electrical version
2) I wanted to run a volt gauge instead of an amp gauge. Did SW make a volt gauge in the wings series
3) If they did not make a volt gauge, what do I do about the 30 amp gauge if I am running a 100 amp altenator. Won`t the altenator blow the amp gauge.
4) (this is a subjective question) The guy wants $2750 for the panel, switches, and all 8 gauges. There were no senders as some were electric, but he did have resistors since they are 6volt. Is this a good, fair or rediculous price.

I did a search before posting this thread but couldn`t find the answer to my questions.

Thanks

 

1 i belive so
2 probably
3 be a man run a generator, alternators look out of place, you might as well run new gauges too
4 Pricey to me, but a perfect set might catch that on the 'bay, but i'm a cheap *** SOB, i paid $40 for my set....

 

That's a pretty steep price....

 

Hello! 1.Yes stewart warner made a electric winged tach gauge with sender
but not close to the regular wing face so the best is to made a mecanic
tach drive, when you swap the alternator maybe you can find a delco generator with tach drive on the rear or have angle drive on crank.
2.and3. No they dont make volt gauge but they have a 60 amp gauge.
4.It takes mutch time to find them all and if they are in mint condition
and not restored they are expensive.But mutch depond on what
gauges models in the panel.

 

Don't know what kind of engine your running but if it's a sbc, you could get an early Corvette tach drive distributor to run that mech tach.

 

I was planning on running a sbc. If I were to get a mech tach, where do I find the cable, adapter and distributor? Is there a reputable gauge repair store to go to in the Northwest that would have this stuff?

I don't want to run a generator just because they don't really work all that well. I have one on my blown 302 GMC 6cyl and it's constantly discharging, especially at night. I find I just don't have enough power for my needs. Is there any way to convert either a 30 or 60 amp gauge to a 100 or higher amp gauge?

I thought the price was rather steep too, which is why I haven't jumped on them. Plus I don't want the hollywood panel, and he won't separate the gauges at this time.

 

Do yourself a favor. In my experience, the volt gauges are install three to get the one to work. Don't mess with an amp gauge. You can do better troubleshooting with a volt gauge vs an amp gauge.
Buy a different brand. Just turn your head before you drop the dollars.
I have more stuff to figure out after droppng my dollars on SW Wings gauges and proper wiring. I'm really disappointed in SW.

 

Yes from what I understand the new Wings gauges SW makes are not the best quality. But I am referring to the vintage Wings gauges from the 50's.

 

Whole 'nother animal. My input would have no experience in that.
Use a volt gauge instead of an amp gauge. My experience.

 

Or you can get the best of both worlds;

Click here: GenerNator high amp cl***ic car alternator built inside generator

 

I agree with you, I'd like to use a Volt gauge, however it appears that SW never made a volt gauge in the vintage Wings series.

That seems like a really good alternative. Is 20 amps really good enough as Jay Leno says in the video?

 

If not, try this........it's rated at 75 amps;
Click here: PowerGEN

 

$2,750 is way high.

 

So really the wings gauges are out of place in a sbc powered car anyway since the big logo's came out in '54 and modern type small logo's came out in '58.....


That's my 2c....

 

Will you ever be charging the battery with 30 AMPS or greater? An ammeter tells you more than a volt meter: "you cannot have amperage without voltage" is a basic tenant of electricity. Just have your ammeter serviced, we have hundreds on the road without issue. No, SW never made a wings voltmeter. I have fabricated the artwork to make them previously, but rarely get the request to build one based on the facts previously stated. There are electric wings tachs, but: not that matches your set and they are overtly complex for their function = failure. As for price, that isn't too bad. Are the temp gauges electric or mechanical? Have any of the gauges been serviced in the past 50 years? Does the seller guarantee function? When we restore a similar set, supply senders and warranty our work the price comes in around there, give or take. So, an NOS set that is fully functional and fits your build? Price is relative. If they are NOS, you should still have them serviced. All the lubricants have dried into gravel by now. And yes, new SW is garbage, just like everything else made in China/Mexico.

 

Oh no, here come the Style Police. Does it really matter that the Wings gauges weren't produced when the sbc was? Seriously!! I thought this was hot rodding and we could do whatever we wanted? I would say there are worse things people have done to their vehicle than mismatched a set of gauges to the engine choice

 

The set of gauges isn't NOS. They are really nice, but not NOS. The guy told me the hollywood panel they were in was NOS, and it does look like it. But I don't think the gauges have been restored, just a nice set. No the seller doesn't guarantee function(it was a swap meet...lol) He had some senders, but they were a mix of electric and mech. He did say he'd supply a set of resistors for the gauges to allow them to be used with a 12V system. As for volt vs amp gauge, I have always been told that the volt gauge gives you more information than an amp gauge as it tells you the condition of the battery.

 

I'm kinda old school, I prefer amp gauges cause you can have volts but no or not enough amps when things go wrong. An Ammeter is just a voltmeter movement that reads a voltage drop across a low resistance high current path called a shunt to determine the current flow through the shunt. (Ohms law). This is the main drawback to an ammeter. If it uses an internal shunt then all the system current has to p*** through the gauge which means big wires to the instrument panel. You could scale the gauge by playing with the shunt resistance value. If it's now scaled at 30 amps, reducing the resistance by 3 times would mean that 30 amps now equals 90 amps. Probably something best left for an instrument shop.

 

Don't worry about the SBC vs. winged era gauge thing. As for the price, I think it's rather high. I personally think you could find a set one at a time on Ebay for cheaper. But then they'd probably need some rebuilding, as Morris said. The set you found may turn out to need some rebuilding anyway. Have your fuel gauge switched to 12 volt. I've had gauges rebuilt mechanically for $150-250 each, depending on the gauge function.

You could start out with some regular 1960's/70's SW's and have them rescreened to fake the old winged. Ask Morris if he'd do this for you. The initial buy-in would be cheaper, but the result would probably look the same.

If you really want a volt gauge, have Morris build you one. Or if your car doesn't have a lot of accessories, get a smaller output alternator and run the amp gauge.

If at all possible, stick with as many mechanical gauges as possible (tach, water temp, oil pressure). Finding a distributor with a tach drive for the SBC is a piece of cake. The cable to hook it up is no big deal for a gauge shop to create.

 

The amp rating has nothing to do whether the amp gauge is sufficient. The alternator only responds to the electrical demand of your system. If the car didn't exceed 30 amp during operation changing the alternator should not make a difference.

Wings gauges were sold concurrently with the big logo gauges for years and I have ******* gauges with wings and later features. They used up a lot of parts ...

 

Small note, we can take the later SW 2 1/16 gauges and restore them as Wings. Is it technically correct? (Hmmms and haws)... no complaints as of yet. If you are building a period rod and have very discerning taste then it is sacrilege, if not then... Also, the big block logo and wings gauges are essentially the same movements.

 

I personally wouldn't do it unless I couldn't find that ONE GAUGE that was holding me back. But I would much rather see some faked winged gauges than some new "SW Wings".

I like my old SW's with some age showing on them. Usually a slight yellowing to the letters, or a bit of dust inside. But I wouldn't turn down a NOS gauge either.

 

New SW Wings gauges are awful. I've gone through 2 speedos, 2 tachs and a volt gauge. They are the first thing coming out...

 

What can i say, ive been piecing togather a set of big logo's for my 283 powered rig instead of running my '49 set of wings that i practically stole...

 

I though volt gauges were for folk lifts.

 

Yeah, but not traditional ones...

 

how many folks can you lift with that Clark?

 

He's French. You've got to cut him some slack.

 

Yes, your timeline is correct. However, if someone were to build a hot rod in the fifties with flathead power. Then when the overheads came out and beat his ***, he swapped in a sbc or Olds. He wouldn't have bothered to change out the gauges. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

S-W Wings volt gauge on the right, original '32 Ford speedo, S-W oil pressure on the left and an S-W electric tach.