Well boys and girls its been a little while. Let me show you what I've been up to ... MUAHAHAHA!!!

If you saw my other write up about door panels, you can follow that pretty closely for the specifics on how to make your stencil and how to pull the carpet around the dash.

Now first off, I went around and around with what to use for the panel itself. I thought about lexan, aluminum, steel, wood, etc. I finally settled on the masonite and carpet since I had plenty left over from the door panels and I think a big piece of shiny aluminum or wood would have looked out of place.

So lets get to it...

Start with the same old trick, start measuring and cutting. I recommend taking your time, I actually did it twice and still messed up one of the gauges, its a little lower than the others but I wasn't about to start a third piece when its this damn cold.







I made a power distribution box for the grounds and for illumination. I made a second smaller power distribution box for accessory power. I used velcro so that it could easily be removed from the panel when needed. I used quick disconnects on all the gauges and wire terminals so that I could quickly replace a gauge or wire another quickly. Be sure that you're covering the metal connections with electrical tape or heat shring, you wouldn't want a power lead to ground out.







I highly recommend taking off the steering wheel, it'll make your life so much easier. You can see from the pictures that the radio mounts nicely save for a plastic bevel, which I haven't mounted yet. The heater controls are not so nice. I will be making a new braket so that it will sit flush against the panel.





I have thought about getting some new ***** as the panel is much thicker than the old cluster bezel. I want to get those ***** that have a screw in them much like the wiper controls have.



Now I have to apologize for the pictures. My cell isn't too impressive. Here's the final shots. I still haven't connected some of the gauges, been waiting to get something to catch the radiator fluid for the temp gauge and waiting to put the oil pressure in untill I get the copper tubing set.





The bulbs that come in the gauge set aren't very bright. I am probably going to by some better bulbs from radio shack to replace them. I kinda like the look of the white gauges on the black background, I was a little skeptical. The green light is the left turnsignal, I was lucky enough to get a pic off while it was flashing. FYI, they don't make 12volt LEDs, you have to either wire in a resistor or get the 12volts with the resistor already in it at radio shack for like $1.99 but unfortunately they dont' make a blue one for the brights, so I used an orange one that you can see between the 4 gauges on the left.
So there you have it... Enjoy.

 

By the way, to mount the panel I used a hand punch with threads into the existing dash metal. That way there is no self tapping screw or nut to hold on the back side.

 

looks great nice work

 

Personally, I would have centered the speedometer and tach, and had the four gauges split on each side of those.

But that is prefference.

 

I had thought about the positioning for sometime and that was one idea but I wanted the speedometer centered on the steering wheel.

 

If you dont mind. about how much money did this cost to make. I have been wanting to do this myself. It really cleans up the inside.

 

I'd say $250 is about what I spent. This includes all the gauges, wires, connections, leds, etc.

I did have mats left over for the door panels I made but even those didn't cost more than $40 for everything I bought to make those. So I'd say you could do it for $250 give or take a few bucks. I priced several gauge sets and the lowest one I could find was only $15 cheaper so I went with these. They aren't autometer but they will do the job, I'm not gonna show this, its just for me