Kurt K
SCCoA Member
Well, it took a lot of work, but I've finally finished one of my projects for the car.
The followin pictures shows the original length of the male spade connectors used to power the LED back-lighting of the gauge (these originally stuck out of the back of the gauge):
I drilled the hole in the center of the gauge so the new power wires shown below could be routed out of the back of the gauge.
This picture shows that the male spades have been shortened so that they fit inside of the gauge housing:
Here's the final test fitting of the bezel. I had to ground down the inside of the bezel far enough for the bezel to sit flat without toughing the gauge. I estimate I removed about 3/16" of the bezel, as well as cutting the gauge housing all the way back to the face of the actual gauge.
Since the hose barb for the new gauge is about 3/8" lower than the factory gauge, going straight out of the back of the gauge caused the hose barb to interfere with stuff behind the cluster. I ended up with this configuration. There "might" have been enough room to go straight out if I could have located a 1/8" FPT x 3/16" hose barb adapter locally, but all I could find was male pipe thread adapter and then had to use a coupling....way too long. I double wire-tied the boost line onto the fitting after installed.
Autometer sells a device that is used to dim their LED gauges. I bought that and wired it so that the illumination level was similar to the factory gauges. I might have been able to disassemble the gauge even further and try to color the LEDs green to attempt to match the rest of the dash, but I didn't want to take the $75 risk to buy another gauge if I couldn't put it back together.
The followin pictures shows the original length of the male spade connectors used to power the LED back-lighting of the gauge (these originally stuck out of the back of the gauge):
I drilled the hole in the center of the gauge so the new power wires shown below could be routed out of the back of the gauge.
This picture shows that the male spades have been shortened so that they fit inside of the gauge housing:
Here's the final test fitting of the bezel. I had to ground down the inside of the bezel far enough for the bezel to sit flat without toughing the gauge. I estimate I removed about 3/16" of the bezel, as well as cutting the gauge housing all the way back to the face of the actual gauge.
Since the hose barb for the new gauge is about 3/8" lower than the factory gauge, going straight out of the back of the gauge caused the hose barb to interfere with stuff behind the cluster. I ended up with this configuration. There "might" have been enough room to go straight out if I could have located a 1/8" FPT x 3/16" hose barb adapter locally, but all I could find was male pipe thread adapter and then had to use a coupling....way too long. I double wire-tied the boost line onto the fitting after installed.
Autometer sells a device that is used to dim their LED gauges. I bought that and wired it so that the illumination level was similar to the factory gauges. I might have been able to disassemble the gauge even further and try to color the LEDs green to attempt to match the rest of the dash, but I didn't want to take the $75 risk to buy another gauge if I couldn't put it back together.