Combo Gauge Assembly, Tips & tricks wanted (not a poll) Options

[Rusty]

I'm about to start assembling my own combo gauge from a kit that I received from Clay.

The kit comes with two plates - one instrument plate and one backplate. It's designed to combine oil temp, oil pressure and the fuel gauge into one instrument.

The instructions are detailed but the pictures are lacking in quality. Just photocopied pages. Also, there appears to be a photocopy of a stickers page? Maybe it's just a template on how to re-silkscreen the individual gauge modules.

A couple of questions to start:

1. Is it better to buy the oil pressure and oil temp guages new with matching senders? Seems like it would simplify thing later. Maybe it doesn't matter... I dunno.

2. About making the numbers and lines on the gauge modules line up... do I need to make stickers, pry off the needles and paste new graphics onto the modules?

I'll be posting in the classifieds for some 914 gauges to tinker with. I won't start messing with the project for a few week as I'm still in a couple of college classes.

-Rusty (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smoke.gif)

[914forme]

You can also use a jigsaw with a metal blade, or a plasma cutter if you have access.

4) You will want to make a device to hold the gauge in place while you work on it. This is not really hard, a few dowels spaced out or a plug that can be screwed to a bench or held in a vice. You place a small cloth over it to make sure you don't scratch stuff up.

You know what. Screw this.

Okay here is what I will do, this weekend I will take pictures of each step and do a photo document of the process. It might take a while to do it, but then you will have all the tips and tricks I used to do these etc. It will be simplier than me typing this all out. And hopefully it will be a classic thread, or atleast a decent reference on the process. The steps I use can be redone for about any guage, as long as you can make the face, you can build a gauge.