Re: Restoring Rusty
 

so I picked up some [ahem] "Direct Replacement" (yeah right) bushings from NAPA for $10 bucks. I think I know where I went wrong with these last time. It appears this is one of 'em variety assortment packs where you get one good fit pair of bushings and the other two pairs don't fit right, but it's late at night and you need your project done so you put the good pair on the brake pedal and the junk on the clutch pedal, ha ha

well this time we will put the good fit on the clutch pedal

You know what they say: "If you ain't doing it over, you ain't Hot Roddin'" OK, maybe I just made that up

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

alright now let's get back to the fun stuff, it was time to fab the Digital Gauge Mounting Plate, aka the DGMP

so we start off with some cardboard like they do on TV

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

then we transfer that template to our carefully selected piece of scrap metal, (ie the first one we saw from the corner of our eye) cause we run what we brong

then over to our organic outdoor metal brake station facility

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then we remember Rule #1. Don't Get Dead

... so we bust out our precision instrument the protractor like thingie and decide to round the corners

and we give it some sandy paper love

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

a quick test fit, that should work

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Man I found this thread a few weeks ago and have been chipping away at it a little every day. Mr. The-Greg you motivated me to rev up my work on my truck and I went to my local pick and pull, got a tailgate, some trim, and had all sorts of :not: fun with spray can aircraft stripper.

I fully blame you. Haha

Thanks for your years of sharing here, it makes a difference out there it really does.

Rock on brother

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Liking how the gauge fit is going. Looking to see the rest.

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Awesum, everyone needs a little motivation, what got me off the couch five years ago or so was a little amateur video (at the time) called ROADKILL on Motortrend a channel of YouTube later on Velocity, the boys have sold out since then but I still recommend you give them a looksie

thanks for the great feedback and enjoy yourself, you will have set backs, you will strip a few bolts and not all your cuts will be straight, but chics love a guy with grease under his fingers, that or a really big bank account, one of the two

peace n chicken grease
The Greg

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

thanks, well let's do it

at first I drilled two small holes just large enuff for the screws and one big one to feed the wires through...

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then I realized them gauges have nipples and if I wanted them to sit flush with the backing plate I would have to open up them holes sum

we adjust and overcome people!

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alright, but how you is going to afix it to the plastic bazel?

aha

looks like the General has a sick sense of humor, he gave us two holes, asymmetrical at that, this will drive The Greg mad

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ok with those blind holes opened up it was time to trasfereatize them to the shinny custom backing plate

for that we use the blue tape, it's not just for painting your wife's bathroom you know

I'm sure there's like 7 better ways to do this, but I think it worked, I used a pick I stole from my old dentist's office, jk he's not that old

these screws came from the junk drawer just for testing, I plan on using black torx head jobbies in the end for the aesthetic factor

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not too crazy about the bolt heads not being flush with the front of the bazel, the angle seems all wrong but it will do for now

thinking about adding two more holes one on top and one on the other side on the bottom to settle my OCD

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my buddy Pontiac Mike gave me these dashboard warning indicator custom LED lights a while back, it's really the catalyst for this entire custom gauge panel project, so let's blame him if it goes wrong, ha ha

anyway, love these for two reasons:

1. they have blade connectors in the back, it's going to be so easy to connect!

2. they are threaded and screw in tight to the panel

man just wish I had some green ones for the turn signal indicators

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so I jumped in the 7 fo' and decided to hit the parts sto'

picked these babies up (at the only Speed Shop in town) for about $8.00 bucks a piece not cheap, not a huge fan of the chrome, cause you know what they say, chrome won't get you home but black will get you back, ha ha

also wish they were the threaded type, but it turns out the slide ins will work out just fine too

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yup, this is where they're going

stepped it up to the 1/2" drill bit to open up those holes proper and they slid right in nice and snug

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SUNDAY... time for church...

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Today I worked on the warning lights, high beam and brake. I have the '78 cluster on my '74 truck and I lost the red plastic display thingie that goes behind the speedo so I forgot what those two warning lights were, the two on the Tach are Fasten Belts (don't have that feature on my '74) and Brake

we is gonna shove them into where the letters of the Alphabet go on an Automatic

first we make da template - roughly a 1 3/8" x 3 1/2"

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then we cut it out of metal

I think this little doinker took as long to make as the entire big panel, ha ha

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I specialize in asymmetrical pieces, so I learned to label them, since they only fit one way, (translation I ain't that good)

like i said this piece took sum doin'

grind a little test fit a little, sand a little more off

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I think this part took two takes, as I didn't bend back far enough on the first take...

nice thing about metal is that it is very bendy

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holding the two pieces in place so I could weld them proved to be a challenge as magnets would not do the trick

but somehow I managed, to tac them in place on one side and weld the entire length on the other

keep in mind this is a backing plate so it's out of sight and out of mind, all it needs to do is hold

and I did clean these welds up with a grinder later

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alright lets mount it up and drill some more holes

we're going to mount these two warning lights as far wide apart as possible so in case we decide to add some more lights we got the room for them (genius I tell you, genius)

stepped up to a 1/2" hole propper

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alright let's mount it up for the 70th time and see how it looks

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lets put sum lights in it

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not too shabby, let's see it with the big gauges back in it

sorry I kept getting the glare when photoing on the kitchen island (shhh don't tell the wifey)

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let's add that top bolt, ok that's more better

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and with gauges

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and one final look at the finished product, before it goes to paint

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since we still had some daylight I decided to mix up some paint, ha ha

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Happy new year gents

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this is where the magic happens

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so I had to decided which terminals to use to make the connections

first of all some advice, these vinyl plastic insulated ones are total junk, avoid them unless absolutely necessary, that hard plastic does not shrink like the heat shrink tubing you see guys heat up with a cigarette lighter

second we will be using unshielded terminals for the ground wires, and I recommend unshielded for everything if you can find them and then make your own shileding from the shrink to fit tubing

a lot of this wire is super skinny it's basically 22-18 gauge, but finding all the connectors in that size is IMPOSSIBLE I went to four parts stores today, and kept striking out so some are going to be 16-14 gauge

I apologize for the glare in the photos, apparently shooting in my den sucks in terms of lighting and shadows

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with the connections / terminals picked out it was time to pick the right crimping tool, or proper attachments/dies I should say

now I really like this tool, it is of the rachetting variety however having to swap between shielded and non shielded dies is a pain

I do recommend two separate special purpose tools with different color handles to easily distinguish between the two

the key to all this is solid strong connections, if you can pull the terminals off by hand you are wasting your time

TOP TIP: pay no attention to the colored dots, use the snuggest opening no matter what color your terminal, sometimes these colors don't help if you were to use them as recommendations

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the devil lives in the details, I decided to crazy glue the turn signal sliders, we can still remove the light bulbs but the housings are now permanent

I like the single use Super Glue tubes cause who has ever used a dab of super glue and put the cap back on and came back six months later and it wasn't all dried up or you were unable to get the plastic cap off, those glue guys sure have a sick sense of humor, am I right

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remember those pertruding nipples on the back of the big Tach and Speedo gauges, well I had to build things up around them with some 5/16s washers and then use 3//16s on top of them in order to be able to tighten the nuts nice and flush

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decided to use one of the backing brackets as a bus bar for the ground, this way I won't have to run 6 separate ground wires, I'll just run one to one of these posts

genius i tell ha

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

we are using the bullet connectors for the individual gauge signals

Green = Tach

Blue = Water Temp (water is blue when we draw anyways so I use a blue wire)

Yellow = Fuel Gauge

Orange = Oil Pressure (O - Orane / O - Oil using a little association there to help me remember)

note there is no separate signal wire for the Volt meter, it just uses the black for the ground like the other gauges and the red for the positive key on, and that's it

TOP TIP: notice how the Orange bullet is mangled a little, the crimping tool did that, so why aren't the others mangled as well, well The Greg stuck them in the female end before crimping those for extra strength in keeping their shape, SMART!

ANOTHER TOP TIP: make the Gauge side Male and the wiring harness side FEMALE, that way when you disconnect a gauge the wire that is left dangling under the dash has lesser of a chance to short itself out, as the female end on it should be Shielded, especially on the positive side of things ie the RED wires

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Female hot is always a good wiring practice... I try to do that even with connectors that shroud the male pins like Deutsch, Metripack, and Weatherpak.

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ok let's turn to the business end of this operation, now if you think this is bad this is after I already wire loomed the three windshield wiper switch wires

so the whole time I am working on this thing I hear the Devil on one shoulder whispering delete all the wires going to the cluster plug - you don't need them

meanwhile the Angel on the other shoulder is saying: just unplug the four yiou need, electric tape the plug and tuck it away you may need some of those wires for power to other gauges later on