custom guage cluster... (completed! 9/26 lots more pics)

[25Horseplay]

How are you wiring it? Are you just going direct with wires?

[muscle_Car1]

The Speedo doesn't seem to hook up to the speedo cable securely.

[htchbck]

well, I think the EGT is mostly a ford product, besides the drivetrain... the tach should still work I would think. If you can find a protege with the 140MPH speedo, it hooks up securely and works just fine (though I do think mines reads a bit off)

[muscle_Car1]

Yeah its got some sort of chip in the cluster

[5.0zone]

htchbck,
You might still be able to back light it. How thick is the film? If you put a light behind it does it light up the numbers?
Mustang guages have been backlight since 1987 and the numbers arn't transparent.

[htchbck]

its too thick, I already tried it. Its been raining all day, so I'm kinda discouraged cause I have too big of a mess in the garage to work on the car, and I can't bring it out into the driveway... cause... yeah, its raining...

[muscle_Car1]

:idea: Umm use an extacto knife & remove the Numbers then if needed frost the back side of the plexiglass
:idea:

[htchbck]

OK, its done. Here's the final specs on it:

- Top lit, solid black background with blue turn signals and blue/red lettering.
- Temp and Fuel gauges are stock festiva
- Tachometer and Speedometer are from a '91 Protege LX (got them from one with a BP, cause I wanted the 7000 redline tach)
- Very custom circuit board and plug in (plugs right into the stock festy dash plugs)

So here's a couple of pics:

My ummm... wooden... circuit board (also know as a giant pile of mess )


The wiring diagram I had to piece together from my circuit board and the pics of the tach cluster circuits posted by muscle_Car1 (I owe you big time for that btw... if ya need any festy pieces, let me know)


Building the plug... which is also made from plywood... I am a carpenter by trade. The plugs themselves (on the old cluster they were copper stubs soldered to the circuit board) are made out of one of my other favorite materials, copper! I took short pieces of wire and made a small loop at the end to wrap each wire around and then screw them to the plug with shortened sheetrock screw (its what I had laying around).




And here is the plug mounted on the circuit board, ready to go in the car.




Believe it or not, the darn thing actually worked... I was most suprised by the plug, because I knew my idea of how to build them was a stroke of genius, and usually when I have those they turn out not to work so well. I had already hooked it up using jumper wires so I knew all the gauges worked right. I plugged up the two stock dash plugs to my new cluster plugs, and then hooked up the speedo. I was so confident that I even reinstalled the gauge cluster bezel (which had been off since August 13, when I started this thread and this project).



Then I fired up the car to take it for a spin. Worked great, the only problem I have is that for some reason the dimmer switch for the lights doesn't dim. But I'll solve that later. I don't use it that much anyway. Here's a pic of the cluster in action for now, and hopefully I can get a hold of somebody's digital video camera sometime and get a passenger to tape a little 0-100 action for me.

[packrat427]

Set your mind to it and almost anything is possible !!
That is awesome ingenuity

[Deathshead]

looks good! lots of work man, i bet your really proud of it, i know i would be.

the only problem I ever had with custom guage faces (on a factory face that is) were this,

I can make some awsome guage faces in photoshop, i think i have some left that look factory, but this is the prob, well with a stock cluster that is.

you ca print out anything you would like and slap it over the old face, but what do you do about the blinker indicaterts, the cel light, all the stuff that needs to have light shine thru? I thought of just cutting around these spots but that looks too ghetto..

any ideas,

[25Horseplay]

That looks great! I love the layout!

[htchbck]

you ca print out anything you would like and slap it over the old face, but what do you do about the blinker indicaterts, the cel light, all the stuff that needs to have light shine thru? I thought of just cutting around these spots but that looks too ghetto..

Well, I didn't solve that problem with mine, I just kinda eliminated it. Other than the high beam indicator (I can tell when my high beams are on anyway) the only indicator light that ever functioned properly on mine was the seatbelt light, and since I always wear my belt (first thing I do when I get in the car) I decided just to ditch all the lights. So I did . Problem solved. And since I did the whole thing in blue and red, I just frosted the back of the plexiglass with the same blue thats on the exterior and on the needles in the gauges. Then I cut out the blinker indicators, so they blink blue and match the rest of the cluster.

[muscle_Car1]

Very nice I'm thinking next time I get some cash to do something similar but with the mx3 cluster.

[ramichael]

That is a really good job, the wiring is what would have stumped me, not good with car wiring. looks great.

[5.0zone]

Congrats! That turned out real well.
I got a kick out of the backside and the plugs. :lol: