no gauge cluster, lights to aftermarket gauges

[steved033]

Hi everyone,

Here's a quick little project to move from "idiot" lights to aftermarket gauges in a factory cluster. I'm fairly bad at documenting, so let me know if you have any questions.

I took a stock cluster, opened it up, cleaned out 40 years of dirt, and set the aftermarket sunpro 2 1/16" gauge so the light in the gauge aligned with the factory "idiot" light. I removed both bezels and glass on the sunpro gauges, then marked around the gauge on the back side of the black facing plate. I then cut the facing with a pair of shears, about 1/16" inside the mark I made, then measured and re-trimmed as needed. The temp gauge I marked and cut to be somewhat concentric with the factory inset. I might go back in and hammer the rectangular dimples flat, but having it like this kind of fits in with the ratty theme of the truck. The temp gauge was a little busy, so I rotated it so that 190 degrees was at 12 o'clock, then blacked out the gauge face with testors model paint. I did the same for the brass looking bodies on the gauges as well.

The gauge lens is actually plastic, so I very carefully scratched off the silkscreening, then sanded and polished with a mother's headlight repair kit. It worked AWESOME on the old plastic. The surround I hit with rustoleum 'stainless steel' which added a really cool texture.

All the lights on the gauges are wired to the stock switched wiring for the ambient (grey wire on a '66), and the function on the voltmeter is wired to the stock switched wiring (pink wire).

let me know what you think!

[64chevtruck]

Nicely done!

[61_FL_Apache]

Very nice!!

[Swed]

Good work! I've been doing kinda the same thing with my 62 cluster, i've use original gauges from a 71 cluster. worked good, It is not 100% done yet but im almost there!

Gauge update thread

[steved033]

Originally Posted by Swed

Good work! I've been doing kinda the same thing with my 62 cluster, i've use original gauges from a 71 cluster. worked good, It is not 100% done yet but im almost there!

Gauge update thread

Awesome job on your cluster! I love it!

sjd

[Mathew21]

Look good. Nicely done.

[Pappyx3!]

Nice work!

[steved033]

Thanks everyone! I spent some time on it this weekend, and got everything running as good as it will...

[jmack91z28]

I like this a lot. It's got me thinking about economical ways to redo my setup without spending $550 on a whole new cluster.

Thank you for posting this.

[steved033]

No problem. I'm glad you like it. I think it all started with NOT wanting to spend 550 bucks on a whole cluster (maybe if I do a V8 swap) the only update I did was to put the temp gauge clocked back correctly. (basically just position the gauge like in the second pic down on the left. I had it clocked with 190 straight up and down, but the gauge reads hot because the factory temp location is in the head.

sjd

[jmack91z28]

Why didn't you remove the factory temperature silk screen off the lens so it doesn't conflict with the gauge?

[steved033]

I liked the balance between the left and right sides, taking that much silkscreen off would just unbalance the dash visually. So in a stroke of genius, my buddy suggested blacking out the gauge face. It looks great. the other option was to just remove the C/H and lines, but polishing that afterward would have been really difficult.

sjd