Ok, so summer is here and im doing lots of work. Which means lots of towing and hauling.

this last week i towed a really heavy load in traffic up some decent hills and through town and never saw the engine get above the R in NORMAL. so im thinking im going to ditch the oil pressure and water temp gauge and replace it with mechanical autometers, and add a 2 guage piller pod for oil temp and vacumme.

so heres my first question. I have a guage cluster with a factory tach in it, and the water temp and oil temp are on the far left side of the cluster. Could i remove that panel and make a replacment panel for the 2 guages without getting codes or CEL or any other problems?

Has anyone done this?

And my second question is, where to hookup all these guages. I know i could figure it out, but i know some of yall have done it and probubly have some advivce. I know where the water temp and vac will go, but what about the oil temp and pressure?

Also, i plan on adding an oil cooler, but that may have to wait a few days. Would that make the oil pressure and temp eaisier?(i know it would, but where is the best location in the system?)

Thank you for any advice, I havent ordered guages yet becasue i want to make sure i can use them.

 

or should i just leave the stock gauges and use 2 dual gauge pillar pods?

I just thought about doing that

 

Hey all,

I need a cap for my '97 F-250 SCLB, and I found one I like the look of (though I haven't seen it in person, and do not yet know if it is still for sale). It's from a '92-96 F-Series, 8', like my 8' bed. But I don't know if it's from a Supercab or not, and my truck is a SC. I'm assuming there's no difference between caps for regular cabs and those for supercabs, but I wanted to ask, to make sure--are they identical?

Also, any feedback, good/bad or otherwise, on Jeraco caps, generally, would be appreciated. I like taller caps, for ATV's, garden tractors, etc...and this one is allegedly 30' high--is that about as high as they come?

Thanks in advance.

BigSix

 

The vac and tach someone added to my old 250 are just screwed into the cubby hole near the ashtray and dash respectively, I don't like the idea of screwing with stock instrumentation when there's plenty of room to add elsewhere.

 

The "doublepost gremlin" got me....

 

Whoops!

I found my "missing" post on Jeraco caps--apologies to the OP and everyone else. I guess I shouldn't post in the middle of the night, huh? LOL

Please disregard--I'll repost it in a new thread.

I'm interested in pillar pod gauges, myself, so I'm subscribed to this thread--thanks!

BigSix

 

I agree the hole near the ashtray is a good place to mount two gauges , the piller is a good place to put gauges that you want to moniter because there easy to see .. Lew

 

You won't be able to fit aftermarket gauges in the stock location without destroying the whole dash cluster, there is a printed circuit board just behind the gauges face that you would have to cut in half.. which isn't recommended. If your engine temp never goes above half way then suffice it to say you don't have a cooling problem, and the same goes for the engine oil pressure, the gauge is really just an idiot light but if it sits in the normal range your motor is solid, no need for another gauge to tell you the same thing.
If you have an auto tranny seriously consider a trans temp gauge instead of or in addition to one of the others, and a vacuum gauge can be helpfull in determining optimum speed for fuel milage.

 

Conanski, ya, i have worked pretty hard to keep the engine in perfect working order. And it does run great and doesn't ever overheat or give me any other problems.

But with the weight im towing all the time and the summer time temps soon over 100, it would be nice to actually see some numbers for water temp and oil pressure, rather then just knowing its NORMAL and lately iv been getting more concerned about oil temp. again because of the weight im towing in stop and go traffic all the time. and last time i changed the oil after i decent drive unloaded and it was steaming. That means the oil temp is over 212, and that was without a load.

ig six, have you found any good place to get the gauge pods? JEGS is the best place i'v found for both the gauges and the pod.

Thanks for the replys,
and keep any advice coming

 

fordman1090,

Re:

No, unfortunately, but I should confess that I haven't looked yet. You're farther along in this than I am, but I do know I really want to get a vacuum gauge, to keep an eye on the 460's mileage, and the pillar gauges do seem easiest to read, as has been noted here. However, given the size of my current "To Do" list, you will probably have your gauges installed before I find a place to buy them--LOL. But if I see something relevant, I'll jump in with a link or something.

And thanks for the JEGS reference--I'll check them out.

And I share your desire to see "what's cookin'" before the "idiot-gauge" decides to finally break the bad news. I too would like to have some fully-functional gauges someday--if nothing else, it might motivate me to actually look at them more often--LOL.

Good luck with your project.

 

Jegs or Summit are two good places for hi performance parts ...Lew

 

yes, i bought a single pillar gauge pod from jegs for my truck thats for the 87-96 ford pickups, i havent set it all up yet, but i mocked it up and it looks like itll work with a little finessing.

 

Oddly enough, if you know what you're looking for, try Amazon. They're usually several dollars cheaper than Summit or Jeg's and have free shipping or orders over like 25 bucks.

Summit's website is a pain, Jeg's is better. Get the part numbers from Jeg's and then try them at Amazon and you might be surprised. Back when I bought my VAC gauge, I paid 10 dollars less than the other two and got it shipped for free.

 

sorry for the long delay. i have tried to update this thread twice and it hasn't worked.

Anyways,

I ended up ordering a couple gauges and the pillar pod from JEGs, they had the best price and free shipping. i hope to get them in the next few days and get them installed.

The only thing that remains that im unsure about is the water temp sensor. I know there is one on the water outlet for the ECU, i havent found the other one for the gauge yet(if there is one?) But i have heard the water outlet is more accurate, should i put it there with a T fitting to retain the ECU sender?

Thanks for all the info

 

T-fittings don't work as well with temperature sensors as they do with pressure sensors because the sensor head needs to have the fluid flowing over top of it. There is a separate sender for the temperature gauge, which is where I would install the aftermarket sender.