After Market dash gauges

[Foley]

During the slow process of bringing ol' Dudley the 64 Long stepper back to life, I'm reworking the oiling system and thinking about some mounted temp, oil pressure, and voltage gauges. I'd appreciate your opinions on any good brands that you know of. I've looked at Equus, Jeggs, and today I hit upon Autometer brand products. Tks

[bigblockv6]

I would go with Autometer gauges, will you be retaining the stock instrument cluster?

[Foley]

Yup, not wanting to punch holes or modify the original cluster or any part of the dash. I'd like to just add them on somewhere so as I could get better readings than those red lights. In fact, the original water temp gauge might even work fine. I'll know about that after I get the engine to fire. But since I've got the oil pump apart to redo and just came up with one of those spiffy, aluminum, spin on oil filter adapters, at least an oil pressure gauge would be in order.

[bigblockv6]

I know you don't want to punch any holes but an ideal place to mount the oil pressure and voltmeter gauges is to the right of the cluster next to the ashtray. That's where GMC installed optional oil pressure, ammeter or volt meters.

[Rockdriller]

Here's what I did with mine.

[nifty]

Check out the SpeedHut Gauges. Lots of style options, good mechanics, reasonable price. NewVintage makes some nice gauges too! And they are willing to make custom gauges at a reasonable price as well.

[Foley]

Thank you all for the suggestions, brand names, and the pix Mr. Driller! BTW, what is that large gauge on the right side of your dash cluster? OK then, so pending some more suggestions guess I'll head back to my drawing board with this little project and see what I might come up with. You've given me lots of things to think about. I kinda like the option of dash mounting next to the ashtray as it would look clean and built in not added on,, but....mostly it scares me. It's kinda like getting that first tatoo. Once you start, there is no turning back to undo it should it not come out right.

[Rockdriller]

Originally Posted by Foley

Thank you all for the suggestions, brand names, and the pix Mr. Driller! BTW, what is that large gauge on the right side of your dash cluster? OK then, so pending some more suggestions guess I'll head back to my drawing board with this little project and see what I might come up with. You've given me lots of things to think about. I kinda like the option of dash mounting next to the ashtray as it would look clean and built in not added on,, but....mostly it scares me. It's kinda like getting that first tatoo. Once you start, there is no turning back to undo it should it not come out right.

That's just an over the counter Sun Tach.

[GMCDAC]

Originally Posted by Foley

Yup, not wanting to punch holes or modify the original cluster or any part of the dash. I'd like to just add them on somewhere so as I could get better readings than those red lights. In fact, the original water temp gauge might even work fine. I'll know about that after I get the engine to fire. But since I've got the oil pump apart to redo and just came up with one of those spiffy, aluminum, spin on oil filter adapters, at least an oil pressure gauge would be in order.

Hey Foley, how have you been? I just thought you may be interested to know that if you want a stock look, that some aftermarket guages can be re-faced to look pretty much original. I bought a 20 dollar reface decal kit for 55-59 GMCs from "The Filling Station" and rebuild the original guages that I knew worked in my truck. I ordered a gas guage and a water temp guage from Amazon, el-cheapo Sunpro brand. I needed them with what I think was called a 270* sweep, but the temp guage had to have 180* straight up vertical. I wanted to go to an electric water temp too. Hopefully I can get a couple of pics to post again here if you are interested.

I forgot to take a pic before I removed the lense from the new guage in the first pic and the second one is after re-assembly and testing to see if I screwed it up doing that work to it with a heat gun. I had to shorten the needle and mix some paint to match too obviously.

Later---DAC

[Foley]

All good information Doug. Thanks for the pictures and yes, I'd be interested to see anything that you have over there in SD regarding gauges and dash stuff.