hoov100 Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 so how much am i looking at for three of these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garvice Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 Looks much better with the lip ground out Ryan. Good work. Brad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pharaohabq Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 yeah, pretty nice. So how much do you think it'll cost to get these setup on injection moulding? are there any places near you that do it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogie Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 That is some really nice work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montezuma Posted April 21, 2009 Share Posted April 21, 2009 Looking forward to the day that they are available for sale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted April 27, 2009 Author Share Posted April 27, 2009 I'm still tinkering with them a bit. I painted mine white on the inside, hoping to help reflect light, and I tried them out yesterday. They backlight great, and even with those lil green condoms on the lights! With the green they look really close to OEM. Unfortunatly none of you guys are close, but in a month there is a really good Datsun show in Canby OR, in June. I will bring down a couple pieces to show some people, so if you guys know of anyone in the Portland area and want a better idea what they look like, have them meet me there. The Canby show is about the only time of the year that I get to meet fellow HybridZ members. I almost always see RTZ (Ron Tyler) and BRAAP (Paul) there each year it seems... I'll try and get pics of them in the dark. Oh! and just FYI, they also fit a 2-5/8" Stewart Warner gauge, electric 90* sweep. I just happened to have one laying around.. Pharaoh, I'm doing research on the injection molding, but some have said that it is fairly expensive to get set up, initially, with the dies and tooling. I'll keep you updated where this goes... Cheers Ryan~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pharaohabq Posted April 28, 2009 Share Posted April 28, 2009 yeah, it can be expensive... We did a group buy at Klearz.com for Clear S30 taillights. Maybe you could talk to them and see what they might charge for it, they did a pretty good job on the lights. What do you think of using high intensity LEDS for back lighting. You can't dim them as easilly, but they never burn out, and they take less space. no heat either. Phar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted May 8, 2009 Author Share Posted May 8, 2009 Here is how they look in 'a' dash, and I even spent a few munites wiring up the lights to show how well they work in the dark, woohoo. I will narate along the way. Here is the gauges installed in the dash. Blast! Stupid reflections! This one has less reflection, but is blurry, hmm.... A closer look at the big gauges. Notice the lil 'tick' marks show up much better after I ground the ridge out of the tapered rings in side of the OEM cups (see post #20, pics 7, 8, 9). I also installed LED's for turnsignals and as a high beam indicator. There was a bit of an "oops" with these, but I'll get to that later on... Close shot of the small gauges, the ones that I have made the cups for. Please take note of a few things here. There is only two gauges; haha, thats because Datsun's only come with two gauge pods and one clock. Stupid clock, never works anyways, so ya, I need another gauge pod cup to finish my install, off to the junk yard. Also, notice that I ground out the 'cross bar' on the OEM part of the gauge on the left, and I not only took out the cross bar but I also ground out a portion of the top for the gauge on the right. Later on, I realized that I can get away with just removing the cross bar, wich means less work, all three Procomps that I have will fit in the given area without removing the upper OEM part like the said gauge on the left. Hmm, I also apparently didnt bother to center the gauges in the cups, the right one is a bit crooked... Here is the same, just at another angle. I could really use new lenses..... Hahaha, here comes my 'oops'. You may notice that my LED's seem to be lit, but they are not on at all. So, tomarrow means that I will have to take them apart, again, and seal up the LED's from the light emitted from the bulbs inside. Yay. . . This is totally dark, no lights on inside the house. These also have those lil green condoms on the bulbs wich is giving the backlighting a greenish tint. They are backlighting well, if not a bit to bright. The little gagues by themselvs. Again you can see the difference in the modifications I made to the OEM part of the cups. I will make them all the same when I rob another set of gauge pods out of another Z ata friends house. I am going to make them all like the one on the left, wich should also clear up the 'halo' effect I'm getting on the right. From the back, you can see they pretty much mount up just like the factory units. However, I have found that the black straps on the back of the gauge pods are not all quite the same. So I had to drill the holes for the straps in slightly different locations on the blue cups. At any rate the black straps in the dash are vary flexable. Oh ya, some of my monkey wiring for the lights, haha... Alright, the big gauges, from the back. Notice the white, that is factory autometer housing with the lip on the front trimmed off. They actually fit so snug in there I doubted wether or not I even needed screws. Before I drilled for screws, I marked for the holes, and then double checked that the screws wouldn't contact the gauge face. This one is almost the same as above. Again, just really showing the mounting screws holding the two cups together. They are just 1/2" stainless phillips sheetmetal screws. I really thought the big gauges were going to be the hardest to do, but in the end they were in fact quite the opposite. As some others have said, the hardest part is cutting into a $200 gauge. I also have a fuel gauge, but unfortunatly, no more spots in my dash to mount it. So I think this one is going to stay intact and mounted elsewhere, probabily near the radio. I think that is it for this post. In assembling, I did notice some small discrepancies in both Datsun stuff and my own. These will be fowarded to my machineist. But this set will work fine for me. Sorry for the huuuuuge post. Time for bed. Cheers Ryan~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New-to-240z Posted May 10, 2009 Share Posted May 10, 2009 just amazing! Can't wait to find out if I can purchase a set of these for my 240!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoov100 Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 if those arent light up all the way, then what did the older style look like when lit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hdflh Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Can you tell me which sending unit you are using for the electronic speedo? I am in the process doing similar guages. Just wish I understood the electronics better. Your work on this is awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoov100 Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Can you tell me which sending unit you are using for the electronic speedo? I am in the process doing similar guages. Just wish I understood the electronics better. Your work on this is awesome. if i remember correctly you need a hall effect type speedo sensor, I'm sure if you called autometer's tech support they should have the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo7MN Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Excellent job! Can't wait to see all of this mounted in a car. Amazing how well those guages fit in there... anyone that didn't know any better would probably assume that's stock! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 Auto Meter sells a couple hall-effect (square wave) sensors, wich are 3 wire, 16 pulses per revolution senders. 2.0 to 16V peak (square wave), 3 wire: pn-5291 standard 7/8-18 thread. pn-5292 Ford, plug in. ~or, like GM with only 2 wire senders, 2.0 to 120V peak to peak (sine wave), 2 wire The data was pulled right from the 'instruction sheet' that came with my 5" speedometer. Cheers ryan~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrKrispy1183 Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Nice man, just hit the lens covers with some Plastx to get them nice and clear and you're set! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted September 14, 2009 Author Share Posted September 14, 2009 Well, I've been meaning to get this done for a long time, so here are the gauges in their cups, in the dash from the drivers seat. Here is a short, poor quality video. I hope it works? Please never mind that the rest of the interior is far from being done, but after working on the car for four years its nice to be able to drive it. For some reason the exhaust sounds like it's coming from a tractor on this camera... Cheers! ryan~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeeZ Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Looks great. Congrats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted September 17, 2009 Author Share Posted September 17, 2009 Oh, and the dash I'm using has a dashcap on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted September 22, 2009 Author Share Posted September 22, 2009 Well, I finally set up a youtube account, see the video here (it's the same as the above video). I still have a couple lil things to work out. My turn signal switch is so worn out that it rarely works, and my tach is having some technical issues. It works most of the time, but there are times that it spazes out then quits. I think it is either a connection issue, or that in its travels during the R&D the circuit board may have been slightly damaged. It seems to quit mostly when it's hot out. Oh, and for future information, make sure you leave enough extra wire behind the gauges so that you can get them out of the dash so that you don't have to take out the whole dash to service them. Cheers Ryan~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted March 4, 2010 Author Share Posted March 4, 2010 Here is a great write up on how to install the big 5" gauges. It's pretty easy with the proper amount of concentration and a few tools. http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?/topic/63713-mounting-autometer-5-tachometer-like-stock/ The only thing I did different was grind the lip out of the black insert and repaint it. Cheers Ryan~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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