Auto Meter gauge cluster

[Redneck86]

Ok so i wanna put a Auto Meter guage cluster in my truck. I wanted to replace the stock ones with ones from Auto Meter thatll be more accurate with whats goin on with the engine. I was wondering what would be the best metal to use. I might put the tach on the steerin column and use the extra space for more guages thatll tell me more about whats goin on too.

Heres my stock guages, im wanna replace all of it with Auto Meter in-dash for a clean look.

 

[Broncobill78]

Not gonna happen. At least as a bolt-in it won't. Replacing the square factory gauges in the dash with round generic gauges is going to take some surgery and quite a bit of time & effort if you don't want it to look like someone hacked up a factory dash cluster to replace the gauges. What you're talking about is nothing less than a custom fabb'd gauge cluster. It CAN be done and it can be made to look nice, but don't expect to do it with a set of $40 Auto-Meter gauges /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> Building a custom dash takes time, thought and money. There are plenty of shortcuts you can take along the way but pretty much all of them will leave you with a dash that looks like someone let a teenager loose with a sawzall. The BEST thing you can do is look thru all the paper & online manuals, then take a LOT of time drawing it out, measuring your gauges and then drawing it out some more. A project like this takes a LOT of time and 80% of that time should be spent figuring everything out before you ever make a cut. A custom dash is an exercise in patience, planning and then some more patience. Spend a lot of time working out how you want it to look and mock it up several times before you *ever* take anything apart or make a single cut. Spend most of your time on the front-end of the project and you'll have a MUCH better chance of being happy with what you ultimately build.

 

[Redneck86]

My idea was to look at how the stock guage panel is attached to the rest of the dash and go from there. After that i thought i could use aluminum to make a new guage panel that the new guages would set in. Im not gonna hack it all together, im gonna take my time to make it look nice and clean. Thats why im goin with Auto Meter, theyre stuff actulley aint cheap they work really good and look good too.

 

[Broncobill78]

Well, Auto-Meter is probably the biggest name out there. Depending on what kind of 4-wheeling you do oil-filled gauges might be something to consider. I've built a few dashes for competition trucks of my own and for friends. If it's something easy like a mud truck standard gauges are fine but I had a friend w/an F350 that he ran in tough-truck events and after trashing several gauges the 2nd time around we went to the oil-filled units and never had another problem. Vibration is what kills them, he was running solid motor mounts with a gigantic 534(8.8L) Super Duty that had been bored out to something like 550CI and that truck would shake tooth fillings loose. What I wouldn't give to find another one of THOSE engines /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> makes a 460 look like the skinny guy at the beach.

Anyways, yes, starting with a clean sheet of aluminum is the way to go. Most of the major gauge Mfg's have templates available in their catalogs or online. Pull the stock cluster and then use a piece of cardboard to make a template that will fit into the space for the old cluster. Once you have that first template do yourself a favor and trace it out 7 or 8 times on another piece of cardboard so that you'll have several exact copies and won't have to do the trial cut-n-fit thing a second or third time. Next printout a dozen or so sets of gauge templates so that you have plenty of them, be sure to *mark* each template with the gauge it represents AS you cut it out. Nothing sucks more than spending an hour cutting out a bunch of silly paper circles and then having NO idea which gauge each one represents (ask me how I know that). Once you've done that make yourself a half-dozen or so panel templates showing different combinations of gauges and positions. It's a process of evolution, the first one will be OK but after you've made several of them you'll start to get an idea of which gauges you want where and what sizes work/look best. Don't forget to include smaller templates for dummy/warning lights and any switches you may want on there. I did a competition truck of my own where I must have made 30 templates before I settled on one that I was happy with. It's a great tool, spend most of your time building templates and when it comes time to actually build the panel it'll almost be a letdown because it goes so quickly & easily.

 

[Redneck86]

Alright cool thanks for the advice, that how ill do it. Just curious what happens to normal gauges when your on rocks? Thats what i planned to build the truck to do since thats whats out here.

 

[Broncobill78]

It just depends on how hard you're landing /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> if you beat the truck hard then the oil-filled gauges aren't a bad idea. Hard shocks will send them all over the place and if it's an occasional thing they're usually ok but if it's frequent then you start to lose reliability. ******* the needle due to *impacts* is not cool so if the truck is run hard most of the time or if you're seeing significant vibration then consider the fluid filled gauges, just keep in mind that they aren't cheap. If the truck sees a lot of impacts or constant vibration the yes you'll want them but for most street driven rigs fluid-filled gauges are overkill. It's just something to keep in mind and probably not something you need to buy, just know that they're available if you DO start beating the thing senseless and wondering why your oil pressure is 20lbs off /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> A solid mount 8.8L rattles so hard it's difficult to describe, it's sorta like a carnival ride.

 

[Redneck86]

By the sounds of it i should be fine with regular guages. I doubt a 460 will rattle them usless, but over time even Dana 60s can break though abuse so i wont kick the trucks ass *too* hard /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />. So ill stick with regualr ones, now all i gotta decide is white or black face.