Gauge Pods....................dash vs pillar

I installed a 3 gauge Pillar Pod and I'm not liking the blind spot it creates, especially at night when gauges are illuminated.

I have been considering changing out the Pillar Pod and installing a 3 gauge Dash Pod and mounting on center of dash above radio. There is a square section of dash where it should fit nicely.

Do any of you have the dash mounted pods? ow do you like them? Any pics you can share?

What are the pros and cons vs these two mounting locations?

Thanks

 

I haven't mounted mine but I am choosing the pillar over a dash mount.

I have a column mounted gauge that is as easy to read as the factory gauges; speedo, fuel level, etc.

My hope is that while the pillar mount may cause some reduced visibility, the gauges are closer in the line of vision and reduce the amount of time the eyes have to come off the road to read.

Your input has me making sure that a dimmer for the column gauges is a must. My single column gauge is too bright at times though it is set to its dimmest setting.

Hopefully others with real world experience will chime in...

 

When I got my '94, it had a two-gauge pod on the top of the dash (boost/EGT). I couldn't wait to get rid of it, I just couldn't stand the way it looked or the fact that I couldn't use the dash-top recess to hold anything, or the fact the PO drilled a hole through the dash for wiring. Went to a three-gauge pillar pod (added temp) and am much happier. Mine doesn't noticeably obstruct my view, but one of my gauges is too bright(window tint fixed that). I'd like to add oil pressure and temp gauges, but I'm not sure where I want to put them, except it won't be on top of the dash.

 

Since my 3 gauge pillar mounted gauges are connected to the OEM hesdlight dimmer, I'll have to figure out a way to install a separate dimmer and were to place the dimmer switch.

Any tips on a separate dimmer switch, how to wire, where to mount dimmer switch, and where can I purchase a dimmer switch?

 

Continue running the wire that it runs on to the new location.

I had some on the dash before. The glare was better on the side after the location was moved to the pillar. On the dash was a mix of oncoming headlights and the gauges. I wear glasses too that didn't help at all.

 

I'm going to try dimming the gauges with a separate dimmer switch.

How is it wired, where can I purchase a switch, and where should it be mounted?

 

Can someone tell me how these three different switches work? Some are 4amp, 6 amp, and 7 amp. Some have three wires (1 ground) and others have only two wires. Done't say anything about the switch being self grounded for the one with two wires.

http://www.littelfuse.com/products/s...-switches.aspx

 

too expensive! They are like $80!!!

Back to the drawing board.

 

I have MaxTow Custom Dual Gauge Package with a 2200°F Pyrometer Gauge
and a Transmission Temperature Gauge. They work very well. Things I wish were different is that they would light up red instead of green. The green is very bright and very visible during the day. At night they dim with turning on the headlights. Unfortunately the dimming not enough. So with this gauge package it is not possible to wire them into the dash dimmer switch. What happens is they flicker and won't dim. I don't know if there are any other gauges out there that work this way but check it out before you take the dash apart. I might suggest opening them up and see if you can install a smaller bulb.
I'd check out Radio Shack or a similar place and see if you can pick up a variable resistor. Just a plain resistor of the right size will knock the voltage down to the bulbs and not need a variable one. You might be able to mount the resistor in the bottom of the bottom gauge

 

I think I'm going to try this gauge panel.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...with-pics.html

I was going to say to wire in a resistor. A rheostat would allow you to adjust the dimness, but I don't think it works well with LED's.

 

In the 80's German cars had red illuminated dash lights. Liking the look I painted my dash bulbs red. Works like the old painted Xmas bulbs. It worked great and lasted longer than I had the car. You might try painting the bulbs. Just use red Auto touch up paint.

 

This is what I did for a vacuum gauge with LED lights I had, too bright even with dash lights totally dark!

I forgot the resistor size in ohms(somewhere around 4.7Kohm) but you will need at least a 2W(pref a 5W) or bigger resistor so it can handle the load of regular lamps with out burning up, LED bulbs you can use smaller watt resistors.

Using a variable resistor will work as long as you get one that is at least 2watt rating in power(expensive thing too)

 

Some LED's are dimmable and some are not. I learned this when I put cheap Ebay LED's in the instruments of a W9 Kenworth I was driving. They would not dim via the rheostat. Turn them down low and they would just go out. Since they were cheap Ebay crap, they started failing. One by one I replaced them with higher quality LED's. The better ones would dim full range. I'm not an electronics guy so I really don't know what the difference is. Maybe someone can enlighten me???

 

The dimmable LEDs have a resistor parallel across them so the automotive rheostat sees it as a regular lamp. The cheep ones do not have that parallel resistor.

LED's run off very little current so you have to get more resistance in the rheostat, but then the lamps will not light up as they need lots of current to get that filament to heat up and glow.


In my case, I added more resistance in --SERIES-- with the LED gauge to get it down to a working level with out using a large wattage resistor in parallel.

 

I have these lights in my gauges. As I said before they are too bright. It would be fantastic if someone could draw a diagram of how to wire this resistor into the system and what resistor to use. I can wire it if I can see how. I just can't design it.