avengerhed, nice work however had a quick question. what does the gauge look like from the back if you're facing the car through the windshield?

reason being is aren't the wires exposed from the back since it's not an a-pillar gauge, it's really a steering wheel column mount bracket? i would think that the wires would be hanging out the back and either tucked inside the a-pillar or dragged alongside and tucked into the dash.

of course maybe i'm completely wrong and just don't see something from the pics.

 

That's nice man... well done!

 

I was wondering the same thing.

 

hahaha...the beauty of that picture is that the intall looks extra clean, but it looks like you've caught me...

acutally, i drilled a hole in the lower portion of the A-pillar to feed the wires/vac line through...luckily you can just drop the vac line right through the hole and behind the dashboard....it was super-easy to run it over to the firewall grommet to Tee into the FPR line. i got a piece of wire-loom to cover the exposed section of vac-line and wire (about 3" long). Currently the loom is black and fairly subtle, but i plan on getting a light grey or colormatched (painted) piece so that it blends perfectly with the a pillar. I dont have pictures of from the front side currently, but i can take them if you want to show you what it looks like.

i bought the cup to mount the gauge on the steering column but couldnt find a place on the column that i liked. i wasnt interested in a 3 gauge pillar, so this was the next logical step.

 

The white face gauge overlay wasn't up for auction at the time I wanted it so I emailed Trustz and he sent the package. Thanks Trustz, if you still read this forum.

After trying to install this myself I got a little confused on how it was supposed to work (I'm a dumbass) and I remembered Avengerhed telling someone here that if they needed any help on the install to PM him. I PM'd him and with a few helpful hints I got it installed. He even offered to help me put in, but I'm midwest and he's east coast so that was out of the question, but was an extremely generous offer. Thanks Dave.

With that said, it took me at least 3 hours, but it not only looks good, but now I can read the speedometer so much easier.

If I had to do it over again it would get done a lot faster, but getting that damned dash pod out of the dash would probably still take me forever. It goes back in easy.

If anybody else buys this and you're kind of a dumbass, get a (smarter) friend to help out. It should go pretty fast.

Thanks again Dave. (I had my son hold one overlay in place as I was snapping it back together, as per your suggestion. Worked great.)

 

hey dude just wondering since you were here 2 minutes ago, the stock badges, do you just peel them off, are they put on with doublesided tape or how, pm me, i want to know, cuz the original ones look gay.

 

they do peel off "relatively" easily. you are best to do it when the trunk is warm (sitting in the sun for a few hours). I slid some thick fishing line between the metal of the car and the badge and sawed back and forth, cutting through the adhesive (a foam tape) while putting pressure on the plastic badge. once you pull the badges off there will be some gummy residue left...you can take it off however you like...I kept heating it with a hairdryer and then rubbed it out with an alcohol soaked rag.

good luck

 

nvm im lame

 

The gauges are back up on ebay now. Around 64 bucks I think. I'm really interested to see how well the wires were ran in the pics.

 

I want to get these gauges too. Can you give me more details?

- Do you remove the stock gauge appliques and replace them with the new ones, or are you actually sticking the new ones on top of the old ones? (like a vinyl sticker)

- How do you get them on w/out removing the pointers? It seems to me that if the overlay holes are a large enough diameter to fit around the stock pointer hubs, then you must have bad light leakage at night from under the hubs. No? Also, it seems like especially with your white faces, you'd see this big ugly black hole under the pointer.

- Where did you get the EL backlighting stuff? Is it EL sheet, or EL 'rope' (like on ebay)? If it's EL rope, how did you get it distributed so the backlighting is even? I love how the control inverter and potentiometer is integrated nicely into the coin tray. I'd like to buy exactly the same one if you could point me to the specific auction or website you got it from.

Hey CDO, did you get a white face one also? Or did you get something custom? I'm thinking about white on black myself.

- Is the EL backlighting required? I mean, if you tried to use the stock bulbs, would it be way too dim?

Thanks. Sorry for all the questions.

Rob

 

Rob, the stock gauge faces stay in place. These just lay on top of them.

The holes in the middle of the gauge faces are big enough to where you slide the new faces under the needles. You kind of bend the new ones a little to get the needle on top. It's not hard at all. There's also those nubs that hold the needle from falling down when say the motor isn't running or your're going zero mph. Again, not hard at all.

No light leakage at all. Behind the new gauges is probably what you mentioned, el sheet. It must be what causes the new light color. No old light comes thru. It's impossible.

I have what avengerhed has, the white face with blue numbers.

The one thing I will say since installing them was that my tach quit working. The new face was catching on the middle thing that the needle's attached to. Without taking it all out again, a friend of mine removed the clear cover over the gauges and used a tiny screw driver to move it slightly. For the next couple of weeks I suppose I'll be cringing every time I hit a bump and possibly moving that gauge face and stopping the needle in its tracks.

So I'd suggest when snapping it all together you have the new gauge faces lying as flat as possible.

Another thing, the new wires for the overlays go between some of the parts. In other words, it doesn't all snap back together as tight as it should because of the wires. The one thing I'd do again after laying in the new faces is looking to see if they're lifted at all in the center like my tach was. And for the perfectionist, you could always gouge out a little plastic so the wires have a better place to run.

One last thing. I must have snaked the potentiometer a different way then avengerhed. My way was too short for the coin tray. Seeing how I was freezing my *** off I just temporarily taped it under the dash for now. Maybe when I refuel my heater or when spring comes I'll mount it better, but it'll never reach the coin tray the way I ran it.

 

Same thing initially happened to me, but i tested the needles before i re-installed them so i didnt have to tear it out again...what happened? if you notice, inside the gauge pod there are little pins which the gauge needs to push down over. When i installed my tach i had the gauge slightly off and not centered on the top left pin...this bent the face ever so slightly and caught on the needle's base.

these are manufactured so that they fit perfectly and there is no light leakage...they really look stock to non-evo owners. because of this, if they are bent or off in any way when you install them they may rub on the gauge.

 

The overlays no longer have the blue centers. Sweet. Now my gauges are matched to the radio and a/c controls.

 

Ricey. Why'd you get the blue amber defi? It doesn't match at all now.

 

Value: how do you know they no longer have the blue centers? Do you mean they changed the design, or did you buy a set and modify them??

Pics??