I've had some trouble with the small gauges. One quit, was replaced under warranty. The other quit, was replaced under warranty. First one quit again so I said heck with it! Time for something new!





Ordered a Quad-Pod, painted it buckskin color to match my dash, and fit it to the post. Took a tiny bit of trimming and some pushing, but all in all it fits very well.



I decided to go with VDO gauges for the oil pressure, oil temperature, and water temperature because they are affordable, reliable, and best match Ford factory gauges. I went with an ISSPRO fuel pressure gauge because it best matched the others. VDO does not offer an electric fuel pressure gauge.



Green LEDs match Ford factory colors very well also.







The most time consuming part of the whole thing was the wiring. I used a couple of 6 way plugs and my permanent markers and made all the colors match. This is tedious work, but the colors and labels pay off BIG in the future. If you take the time to do this, you will thank yourself a million times over.









A few labels don't hurt anything either!



All wired and ready to install.







Tested the lights and it was a good thing I did. Had to turn a couple of LEDs around.



I made an adapter to go in the oil cooler line for the oil temp sender. I ended up putting it in the oil filter adapter, but it is after the oil has gone thru the cooler. So next time the truck is on the lift this will be going on the outgoing cooler line.









Installed the fuel pressure sender with the help of the fuel rail adapter. The oil pressure and water temp senders just go in the usual places.





And there it is. I wasn't sure if I liked it at first, kinda seemed like it was in the way. But after driving it a few days I like it real well.

 

Looks good!

When installed, where are the connectors?

did you have to cut holes into the stock A pillar for clearance?

If you had a spare A pillar trim piece, would you connect it and the pod together differently than the plug pins provided?

Thanks for the pics!

 

Thank you for your complement!
The wires come out the bottom of the pod, go down the side of the dash trim, and get tucked behind the kick panel trim. The connectors are tucked up under the dash all nice and neat. If for some reason it needs to be removed, you simply unplug the plugs and pull them and the wires from behind the trim, remove the two trim screws and the three screws in the middle, and take it out as a unit. Takes about two minutes.
No clearance holes in the original trim are necessary. If I ever remove it, know one would ever know it was there.
The pod was designed to fit over the original trim. I thought about taking another trim piece and carving it up to meld the two together, but I don't think it would look as good the overlap does. I like the buckskin color because it matches my dash pad and if I did the trim hack I would have to go brown to match the original trim.

 

One more thing, if a single gauge needs to be removed you simply pop it out and the curly Q of wire behind each gauge gives you about 6" of wire to work with.

 

This pleases me that you went with VDO gauges. I want to set up gauges but don't want to do an A pillar setup. Doesn't seem like many places to install on the bricknose dash either.

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...em-gauges.html
This won't work for everybody, but might give you some ideas.

 

VDO has been OEM gauges for various brands of heavy equipment and farm equipment for many years so I an familiar with them. And they match the Ford OEM gauges pretty well.

 

Hmm that works. I also thought about mounting some below the ashtray...but it seems pretty low.
I am familiar with them from dealing with Volvo's and other euro cars. ALways seemed to be good quality...with the exception of the odometer gears

 

Was VDO out of business for a while or something? I had them in my Jeep, and when I was looking for a tach for my Bronco I looked for them. I was able to find one, but it was hard to track down, and it felt like I was getting someone's obsolete inventory. Glad to hear they're still active though.

 

I don't think that they were ever completely shut down, but it appears they went thru some changes. Used to be that everything was made in Germany. The last few times I got stuff, it was made in several places. At least none of It was made in China!