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Old February 19th, 2013, 02:21 AM
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jimjaz jimjaz is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Tempe AZ
Truck: 1963 K-1000 Sub, 1963 C-1000 Sub, 1965 C-1000 Sub
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Default Re: Where to find replacement dash/gauges?

I looked into Boese Engineering here in Tempe AZ (where I live), and although they do good milling work, I did not like the way that this milled plate was going to fit into the "cluster recess". It was basically a bunch of 90-degree bent elbows with screws that could attach the plate to the dash surround. I tried envisioning just how difficult this would be to install into a 62-66 dash pocket from the backside. I decided that the overall design was cheesy and would not be user-friendly in the least to install, or to de-install, so I moved on. Found a guy on e-Bay http://www.ebay.com/itm/4592707093?s...84.m1423.l2649 that was selling milled plates for the 60-66 GMC and wound up buying one of his, only to find that this 1/4" thick aluminum plate when mounted into the existing plastic bezel surround (yes, you need a sacrificial instrument cluster to do it this way, basically cutting out the entire recessed area with the OEM instruments and leaving about a 1/4" lip at the back/bottom for the plate to rest on without falling through) covered up the screw mounting holes that are specific in depth to mount an OEM bezel into the hole and have the 6 screw holes line up properly so that the plastic bezel outer edge is flush. I wound up keeping the plate, but had to mill 0.200 of the overall 0.250" thick plate a full 1/2" in on the backside so the plate drops into the cutout (original) bezel surround with the holes to mount exposed.
As to the gauges, I found that Classic Instruments has some nice stuff. They have 3-gauge 3 3/8" packages available, but not cheap at about $600 for the gauges. I chose the 6-gauge package, since this is how the plate I bought was milled. I think it will look really nice once I get it done and ready to mount (as the original bezel mounts) Hope this helps you out in your quest for gauges. Jim J. Tempe AZ
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