Autometer gauge cluster- Gringoloco style*

[shifty]

Chris, THANKS!, you rock!

[gringoloco]

Originally Posted by cstanley

hey, where's the frontal shot???

Top of page 1... But here's another just for fun.

[72short]

since i have no use for the choke on my engine i always figured it would be neat to put a shift light in that spot, think that would work?

[shifty]

Originally Posted by 72short

since i have no use for the choke on my engine i always figured it would be neat to put a shift light in that spot, think that would work?

you are only limited by your imagination!!

[shifty]

Ok, here's what I decided on....I am finding tons of possibilities but I absolutely cannot get over how much I want the Ultra-Light II gauges - they're white face with black numbers at night, and black with white numbers at night (reverse glow). If you haven't seen them, Google for a pic...it's really cool - only problem is, they don't come with a quad-gauge or tach/speedo combo gauge, so I can't just do a 3-gauge dash. I also really, really want the blinker setup from a 3-gauge dash (center hole).


Today I started drawing things up... and this is what I came up with:

7-gauge cluster...with a 3-gauge 3-3/8 center hole with blinkers and dummy lights.

Right-hand 5" hole will have a speedo in it.
Left-hand 5" hole will have a tach in it
3-3/8" center hole will have a blinker.
stock blinker holes will be used for the check engine light.
the bottom holes will have 2-1/16" gauges for oil/water/volts/fuel.

I think it will be pretty cool - but the 5" gauges are on backorder until May 21.

Part numbers., if anyone is interested (NOTE: some of these gauges are electric because I'm installing an LS1!!)

Autometer Ultra Llight II 5" gauges:

autometer 4989 - speedo
autometer 4998 - tach

Autometer Ultra Light 3-1/8" gauges:

autometer 4992 - voltage
autometer 4953 - oil pressure
autometer 4937 - water temp 100-250
autometer 4913 - fuel level

[Hart_Rod]

Originally Posted by shifty

Ok, here's what I decided on....I am finding tons of possibilities but I absolutely cannot get over how much I want the Ultra-Light II gauges - they're white face with black numbers at night, and black with white numbers at night (reverse glow). If you haven't seen them, Google for a pic...it's really cool - only problem is, they don't come with a quad-gauge or tach/speedo combo gauge, so I can't just do a 3-gauge dash. I also really, really want the blinker setup from a 3-gauge dash (center hole).


Today I started drawing things up... and this is what I came up with:

7-gauge cluster...with a 3-gauge 3-3/8 center hole with blinkers and dummy lights.

Right-hand 5" hole will have a speedo in it.
Left-hand 5" hole will have a tach in it
3-3/8" center hole will have a blinker.
stock blinker holes will be used for the check engine light.
the bottom holes will have 2-1/16" gauges for oil/water/volts/fuel.

I think it will be pretty cool - but the 5" gauges are on backorder until May 21.

Part numbers., if anyone is interested (NOTE: some of these gauges are electric because I'm installing an LS1!!)

Autometer Ultra Llight II 5" gauges:

autometer 4989 - speedo
autometer 4998 - tach

Autometer Ultra Light 3-1/8" gauges:

autometer 4992 - voltage
autometer 4953 - oil pressure
autometer 4937 - water temp 100-250
autometer 4913 - fuel level

[pcmcobra]

i agree

[shifty]

i'll show you when the gauges arrive i just ordered from Jegs, $875 for all six (ouch) Summit is killing me lately now that they have a store here in GA (tax), their gauges were cheaper, but it was $60 more due to tax.

have you looked at my gallery yet? i love taking pics like you guys need to tell me to take pics

[gringoloco]

Originally Posted by shifty

Right-hand 5" hole will have a speedo in it.
Left-hand 5" hole will have a tach in it
3-3/8" center hole will have a blinker.
stock blinker holes will be used for the check engine light.
the bottom holes will have 2-1/16" gauges for oil/water/volts/fuel.

I really like this idea. I may steal it for the other truck...

Coupla Q's:

Why the non-standard tach-left/speedo-right? Seems odd to have them in this arrangement to me. Normally the speedo is left and the tach is right.

Why not use one blinker hole for a CEL and the other for the high beam indicator? It would be cool to get the filter from a late model dash and fit it to the hole so that it would actually read "Check Engine" or even the little yellow engine diagram. You could also fit the blue high beam "headlight picture" filter. They would be invisible until lit.

Pics are mandatory upon completion...

[shifty]

I am pretty sure my VW has the speedo right and tach left, hence why I typed it this way. I tend to look right for speedi n my car.

I like your idea for CEL and HB indicators. I think I'll steal that...sounds very cool!!

[killer71]

Hey guys pardon the ignorance but on the autometer II. I'm looking at them in the jegs magazine and it says that they are either full sweep or short sweep electric. What does this mean?

[shifty]

I am pretty sure that full sweep is 270 degrees from low to high - example:

http://www.amazon.com/Auto-Meter-735.../dp/B000CILEB4

short sweep is just a 90 degree to 120 degree from low to high - example:

http://www.amazon.com/Meter-6116-Cob...8390603&sr=1-2

I *could* be wrong on this. I am not 100% sure, but this is my understanding.

I *highly* recommend stopping by www.autometer.com and looking at their gauges. There is a ton of info over there - just don't get overwhelmed!

[shifty]

PS - these are the gauges I am looking at: http://www.autometer.com/cat_gaugeop.aspx?sid=61

Wave your mouse cursor over the "View Illumination" text near the gauges and you'll see the day/night view of the gauges - when you do, I think you'll understand why I want them so badly

[killer71]

Originally Posted by shifty

PS - these are the gauges I am looking at: http://www.autometer.com/cat_gaugeop.aspx?sid=61

Wave your mouse cursor over the "View Illumination" text near the gauges and you'll see the day/night view of the gauges - when you do, I think you'll understand why I want them so badly

Shifty those are cool; I was wandering if you ever checked out classic instruments prior to ordering your gauges and if you did what is your opinion?

[shifty]

my opinion is they didn't have anything as cool as this, so i bypassed them. i love their speedo/tach combo gauge, and they had two really cool gauge styles i noticed, but they didn't have the gauge sizes i wanted in the styles i liked, and they were even more pricey than the Autometer gauges, which is a freaking shocker!


i checked out almost every gauge manuf'er i could find online - classic, dolphin (and their shark line) autometer, VDO, SunPro, you name it.

Autometer and Classic had the coolest styles, but Autometer is still A++ one step ahead of the rest, so ....

[killer71]

Originally Posted by shifty

my opinion is they didn't have anything as cool as this, so i bypassed them. i love their speedo/tach combo gauge, and they had two really cool gauge styles i noticed, but they didn't have the gauge sizes i wanted in the styles i liked, and they were even more pricey than the Autometer gauges, which is a freaking shocker!


i checked out almost every gauge manuf'er i could find online - classic, dolphin (and their shark line) autometer, VDO, SunPro, you name it.

Autometer and Classic had the coolest styles, but Autometer is still A++ one step ahead of the rest, so ....

Thanks for the info. I'm probably gonna go with something very similar to what your doing. I just wanna make sure I get what I want before laying down that kind of $$$$$$. Didn't realize classic instruments would be more $$$ that autometer.

[special-K]

Man,how did I miss this one?That is a great set-up.The lower gauges in the gauge dashes can hardly be read while driving anyway.

[shifty]

i'm totally going to hijack this thread and jam it with info.

the cluster teardown and rebuild started tonight, i got the four lower gauges from Jegs today, so figured "what the heck".

i tore down the 7-hole dash to see how it works. the lower 4 gauges from Autometer fit directly onto the bezel with no modification required - actually, nothing is really required. very nice. almost like it was "meant to be".

i followed up by removing my 3-hole dash (thanks to krue, good writeup in the FAQ!!). once i got it out, i tore it down to see how hard adaptation would be. here is what i can say so far:

- the 7 hole dash has a notch in the lens that is not available in the 3 hole dash. i laid both lenses over each other and used a dremel to create the notch.

- The two uppermost holes on each gauge panel inside line up - the rest do not. the differences in the plastic on the back of the bezel are fairly significant.

- the 7 hole dash sits deep in its bezel while there is actually a considerable distance between the bezel and the gauge faces in the 3 hole. this was a surprise.

- the blinker/dummy light setup on the 3 gauge dash uses a plastic barrel to send the light to the gauges (if you tear one apart you'll understand). the 3 gauge dash has tabs on the metal face to make this plastic piece line up. you can actually bend those metal tabs over the edge of the plastic barrel to hold it in place.

- you can drill out existing holes in the 3 gauge lens to bolt the metal housing+barrel to it.

- once this is done, you can actually cut the center 1/3 of the 3 gauge dash setup, then drill and screw that to the 7 gauge metal with no obvious problems (i haven't done it yet). the screws will be hidden by the plastic front bezel and nobody will know any better.

i took a couple of pics, but realized that they won't do any good to explain how to do it, so i'm typing words instead

i mapped out the wires i'll need to maintain also. this is a basic setup i decided to go with after tracing wires and drawing stuff out on paper:

* use a 7 gauge dash bezel and backing plate

* the center 3-3/8 hole will have L/R blinkers, brake dummy light (lower red) and generator dummy (upper red)

* the two blinker holes above the 3-3/8 opening will be used for my check-engine-light (right hole) and high beam indicator (left hole) using a dim LED. I will dremel out the stamped blinker arrow from the stock cluster backing to make it not be a blinker anymore

* the lower four gauge holes, of course, will be water/temp/oil press/fuel. not sure on the order yet.

i traced wires - the stock 3-gauge dash connector has 12 wires going to the rear of the bezel (via molded plastic connector). this is only for the bezel lights and indicators and does not include headlight switch and wiper control.

if you look at the molded connector on the rear of the bezel, you'll find numbers near where the wire terminates, which is a freaking lifesaver....keeps it simple. based on that....

for my setup, i'm pretty much able to delete all of the wires except:

#2 - tan (brake dummy)
#8 - dark brown (generator dummy)
#9 - light green (high beam indicator)
#10 - light blue (left blinker)
#11 - dark blue (right blinker NOTE: there are 2 dk blue wires!!)

i'm uncertain how the bezel is actually grounded at this point.

i'm also not sure what i will use for a harness to mate the stock wires to this dash setup (i saw a cool one Putter used but have no clue where he got it).

the check engine power lead will be coming from my stock LS1 harness, so obviously i will be using that lead externally.

i deleted my heater controls from the truck completely, so i have several wires to prune out of the harness right now. i already cleared wires out of the engine bay as well to pull unnecessary ones out of the bulkhead connector. i will be nuking the bulkhead and shaving it in favor of a standalone harness from CurrentPerformance.com (model# SA-1000).

the wiring layout that member 'boundstaffpress' posted in the FAQ has been a lifesaver in tracing wires, let me tell you!!

i expect that this process of dash buildup will take 4-5 hours minimum. i expect that the wiring portion of it will take 5-10. i am hoping i won't be leaving town this weekend, i would love to work on it because i AM leaving town the weekend after.

[Hart_Rod]

Originally Posted by shifty

i took a couple of pics, but realized that they won't do any good to explain how to do it, so i'm typing words instead

Stop teasing, lets see the pics!

[gringoloco]

Originally Posted by Hart_Rod

Stop teasing, lets see the pics!

X2- You can't hijack with no pics!!!

[shifty]

Will post when I get home, my bench is a mess of cluster guts right now

[pcmcobra]

ya,...need pics

[shifty]

Ask and ye shall receive.

I keep tellin' y'all, I'm still in hacking phase and not quite ready for assembly, but here is a teaser from what I got so far. I don't have my 5" gauges yet, so no mockup available on those.

Notice I sanded and buffed out the "OIL PRESSURE" lettering in the center piece. I'm using it as a BRAKE indicator, sucks I can't match the lettering, but oh well! My main concern was keeping the blinkers, not all the other hooha stuff.

[smoked68]

My son and I were just talking about doing exactly what you did. Love the look, hate to ask but how much and I saw where you said the cab tank guys might have probs. Mine is a 68. Any info would be great thanks, Mike

[Jerdog]

That looks really trick!