Technical Does anyone use boat gauges in your hotrod?

Those boats are a bit like older Ferraris, as long as you have the serial/Vin number and some of the basic pieces you can duplicate the whole thing to factory blueprints and call it a vintage boat. The Bad is that someone has let them sit out in the open for years.

 

Hello,

Every application is different as to how the gauges fit into or out of a boat. My wife’s dad had some SW gauges, but the tach looked different than the SW tach we had on our willys coupe. But the oil, water and amp gauges were the same.

In our sail boat, the gauges are probably made by a major European gauge manufacture, since the boat was made in France. But, companies buy the brand name rights to have their names on the gauges or use the majority of brand names for marine use for their models. Again, all connections are for the motor used as the major power source of the boat. I would not use our boat gauges in a hot rod. There are good versions of standard and custom gauges on the market for all applications. Traditional or not…

Jnaki

You could use boat gauges in car, but just because you found an unusual tach, it does not mean it would fit into the hot rod world, without modifications. Cabling is the main issue. But, the HAMB speedometer expert can tell you exactly how to modify or if it is easy to modify for hot rod use.
https://www.speedoservice.com/
Note:

As far as aircraft gauges, again, all gauges are different from each manufacturer. When I was driving the Willys Coupe, the big shiny Sun Tach was front and center. I looked at it once at a stop light and that was it. No need to watch the needle as the sound of the motor told me when to shift. Even in the Impala it was the same thing. So, I decided to get a small tach. Good luck with the brand name tach makers. They were all shiny and all large.

I found a simple, smaller tachometer that would not have to be drilled on the dash, but bolted under neath the lip for a non destructive place, yet be seen if needed.
Almost half the size of a chrome Sun Tachometer... I found it at the Army Surplus Store in Bixby Knolls. It was a series of gauges taken out of an airplane. We did see similar ones in the old Douglas Aircraft Surplus Yard, too. But, no tach. So, this one was shiny black and the owner hooked up the appropriate power source and the built in light came on brightly.

The small black tach that fit nicely under the lip of the dash, over to the right side of the speedometer. It covered the 120 mph mark, but at the drags, the 120 needle was pegged at the start and was useless. On the street, no one goes that fast... The built-in light was ok for night time cruising. On drag race days or nights, we never used the tach… too busy getting a two car lead at the start.
Impala dash placement
The large Yellow arrow placement, was the first choice as it was directly in front of normal vision. But, it blocked the primary speedometer readings. The small arrow pointer location was an out of normal driving, front road vision at a glance, location. Nicely tucked under the dashboard lip. No harmful additional holes were added for the installation. Lit up dial inside at night, made a nice glow. YRMV

 

As a side note, the boat tail white one already sold.

 

And, I thought you'd be interested in seeing this panel I picked up a while back, which has two tachs like yours. To put it into perspective, time wise, the panel is brass & made by Stewart-Warner...date coded 1946. Interestingly, the shape of the panel closely resembles the later "Hollywood" panel that Stewart-Warner debuted in the 50's, along with the Mate & Ensign models. The two empty holes were enlarged to house two 1948 S/W Wings electric temp gauges, which I'm in the process of restoring.

 

Thanks! Interesting. Will have to do a search.

 

If you use boat gauges in your car, and the engine blows up, do you get a sinking feeling?

 

I just noticed that the aforementioned link to the tach interface module took you to a fuel module, not the tach one. Sorry.

 

Here's the right link.

https://www.technoversions.com/TachMatch.html#TM1

 

Ok. Was wondering about that and thought maybe if worked for tachs as well.

 

I've been using this Mercury Marine tach with the 216 in my truck for a while. It's electronic, 12v negative ground, 6 cylinder. I have a matching vacuum gauge stashed somewhere that I haven't installed yet.