Gauges...
 

Hey guys,
Ive been contimplating this for a while now. I am thinking about replacing my Speedo, RPM and coolent with Autometer Cobalt gauges. Has anyone done this before? Is there any downsides to this as far as operability with DSMLink and such? Anything else i should know about this before putting it into my budget.

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Stick with stock till your car works for more than a day or so. :)

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Keith Anderson on here did it years ago. Very nice, but it's not easy, especially getting the speedo to work with our tranny.

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**Edit** NM no defi speedo or rpm that i could find.

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See this thread:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/forums/showt...ighlight=gauge

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It can be done but like Steve said, it's not easy. I built two of them. Still have this one:

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o...776_9_full.jpg

The electronic speedo makes things much easier. No speedo cable required and the electronic sending unit screws right on the tranny. You just need the correct "tang" to drive the sender.

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How did you do that all exactly? What was a rough estimate on cost? I too have been wanting to do this, but it's not quite at the top of my priority list.

-A. Swift

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*Off Subject* Keith, I remember seeing your totaled car in your driveway, and it almost made me cry. I had gotten my very first DSM, and came to your house to buy your factory hatch cover. I remember you were working on an El Camino SS at the time. That was one of the nicest 1gs I have ever seen!

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Well, whatever the gauges, speedo sender, and tach adapter cost plus a spare cluster to hack up.

Doing just the three center gauges is easy. You just have to enlarge the holes in the face and clear the housing behind so they fit. The printed circuit on the back stays intact so all the dummy lights work.

If you do the speedo and tach as well, you'll have to make a decision about keeping the dummy light functionality. Keeping them functional makes the job a LOT more complicated and time consuming. The problem is the depth of the gauges. They stick out the back of the cluster. In order to get them to fit, you have to hack the shit out of the housing. The bulkhead sockets will no longer work which means you have to custom wire everything. You also have to hack up the dash behind the cluster. The bulkhead connectors have to be taken apart and the wires reconnected to some other type of connector like a 25 pin computer plug or something. You have to figure out which wires go to each dummy light and wire them appropriately. I cut up the printed circuit and soldered wires to each piece for the lamps. I have more pictures of the back side of the finished cluster somewhere. I'll post them later.

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Ya, that sucked big time. It was one of the nicest DSM's I ever owned. Only consolation was I actually made money on it. The El Camino is gone too. I sold it back in April. I had that car for 26 years.

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Ok i found the gauges i will be using. http://www.striracing-usa.com/pro_d_e.htm I really like these ones, Kinda like defi but look much better.
I found them in Modified mag, just gotta talk to a distributer this week. There are 2 of them like 10 miles from my house.

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I wouldn't care if I kept the dummy lights or not. I monitor my gauges rather regularly. I'd like to upgrade the stock gauges, to match my other autometer ultra-lite gauges. How did you get the speedo to work? which fuel level gauge did you need to get? Any pics of the back? I'd only need things like the turn signals, high-beams and whatnot to still function. I don't need the low oil light (doesn't even work) ABS (doesn't have) battery failure light, or any of the others. I could even just wire those in with a capacitor and led bulb if needed.

-A. Swift

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The speedo is electronic. You have to buy the sender separately. The sender attaches to the transmission where the factory speedo cable goes. Then you run the wires to the speedo. Calibrate the speedo and your're done.

I never had a fuel level gauge. Never missed it. I wired up the low level warning light.

I couldn't find pics of the back so I'll take some more and post them.

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how did you retain the stock fuel level light? I'd still like to keep the fuel gauge though, I jsut notice Autometer makes many different ones for fords, or chev's, or whatnot. I also don't know the volt range the gauge needs.

-A. Swift

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I rewired all the dummy lights including the fuel level lamp. If you have a service manual, it shows the voltage that the factory fuel level gauge operates at. It think the closest one Autometer makes is for Chrysler vehicles. The only other option is to get one for GM cars and install Autometer's fuel level sender in the tank. I know a guy who did that. He rigged it up on the factory pump hanger and it worked perfectly.

http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/DSC01540.JPG

http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/DSC01537.JPG

http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/DSC01538.JPG