I'm trying to wire gauges into my 30' roadster, and this is my first time doing it and I have no clue what to do. I'm not looking to buy some $200 dollar wiring harness set up, I just want to wire it up like they did back in the 40's. Cut and dry, plain and simple. I have oil, amps, temp and fuel. SW gauges. All I basically need to know is where to run the hot lead wires from all the gauges? I have a 40' ford column that has the gauges hook up option on the back, but when I wired that in, it started to smoke. Is there another place I can run the hot lead wires for all the gauges to get them to work? If anyone has any input, that would be greatly appreciated, thank you very much. p.s Im running a 12v system.
Do you have senders that match the gauges ? They need to. And are they 12 volts ? I'd reconsider the amp gauge . Basically the senders are a variable resistance ground . As the resistance changes with more or less pressure, heat, fuel the gauge moves. One side of the gauge goes to the sender. The gauge should be marked or detailed in a diagram. The other end of tge system is your 12 volts in. You want this on a fuse and can jump one wire to all of the gauges , the side opposite the sender. They probably have a light too. Pics would help
This might help...unless you are into computer driven motors.. we used to use a wiring diagram from any make/model as a guide.. it would show the wire's gauge from the battery to the ignition and then jump to your dash gauges, light switch etc.. while the diagram was intended for a different application the basic idea is there and you can follow the flow. What you need to pay attention to is the wires routing otherwise you can end up with a web. Change the wire's color to suit yourself. you can get a laminated diagram at lots of web sites, swaps etc.
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