1961 gauge/dash cluster question

[Rockdaddy]

The needle fell off the tach of my 61 (it was a generator, and wasn't working since the 350 engine and distrib was changed) and with the age the gauges are looking tired, working but tired.
One option is send them off to a couple of vendors suggested in other threads and have the originals, refurbished as new or to replace with some of
the great looking gauge mods such as John McGraw's (could not see the links) but sounded great or updating to the Autometer, which were totally great looking,
or somewhere, can't find it was some Stuart Warner gauges.
Should I keep the original cluster and make a new one?
Any input or suggestions would be helpful, this car is our,(my son and I) car to enjoy, its not a NCRS quality or a show car, but we love it and invest money and time as
a family thing.
thanks in advance

Rocky in Central Florida

 

[cbernhardt]

Gauges

You can add Autometer gauges to the pod pretty easily, probably sell the old gauges for about what the new ones would cost. Below is a picture of the white faced Autometer gauges in my '59.

 

[Rockdaddy]

Thats exactly what I was interested, that looks great!
Any special things to remember to install or hook up, your experience is priceless.
Thanks very much.
Rocky

 

[cbernhardt]

Thats exactly what I was interested, that looks great!
Any special things to remember to install or hook up, your experience is priceless.
Thanks very much.
Rocky

Don't know if you want to go to the trouble, but when I replaced the gauges I wired the complete pod with weatherpack connectors so I could easily remove the entire pod without having to disconnect any of the wires connected to the gauges or pull the lights out of their sockets. The only mechanical thing I have to disconnect is the speedometer cable.

If you try this you will see that the gauges can be mounted from the front or rear in the gauge holes. I first tried mounting the gauges from the rear. See picture below.

05071038.jpg[/IMG]

I found that the gauge on the extreme left side interfered with the metal frame behind the pod, plus I thought it was easier to read the gauges if they were mounted from the front, so I moved them to the front.

I found that when mounting the gauges from the front that is was necessary to slightly trim a little material from the bottom of the small gauge holes.

All of the gauges are electric so you need to make sure the gas gauge matches the ohms of your tank sender. You may have trouble finding a new gauge that has the 0-30 ohms required for the original C1 gauge sending unit. I am not using the stock tank or sender so in my case that was no problem.

If you decide to go with the white faced gauges, you can get an unpainted speedometer face plate from Year One (at least that is where I got mine several years ago) and paint it yourself. This is a lot easier than trying to remove the paint from a painted one.

Charles

 

[Rockdaddy]

Thanks Charles, what type and color white did you use and what type Auto Meter gauges are the ones you used?
I picked up another housing and will be mounting the gauges, only hurdle will be the gas guage for sure.
Again thanks for sharing.
I just found a site on ebay that sells the white face, retro fit.

Rocky

 

[cbernhardt]

Thanks Charles, what type and color white did you use and what type Auto Meter gauges are the ones you used?
I picked up another housing and will be mounting the gauges, only hurdle will be the gas guage for sure.
Again thanks for sharing.
I just found a site on ebay that sells the white face, retro fit.

Rocky

I believe the model for the Autometer gauges was "Arctic White"
Charles

 

[67vet]

Here is a photo of how much metal was removed from my dash to allow the Dakota Digital Dash to be installed back in 2003.
They may have modified their instument panel since then. But this gives you an idea of what you would be up against.

Roger