Aftermarket Gauges - Gauges With A Shot Of Muscle

4 The Classic Dash panel will completely replace the factory piece so it needs to come out. Dropping the column gives enough clearance to remove the panel once all the Phillips screws around the perimeter are out and the wiring is unhooked.

5 Since the new gauges are electric, we needed to install all the sensors. Here we are installing the water temp sender in the manifold. The sender came with the appropriate adapter for our 383ci small-block application.

6 The oil pressure sender proved to be a bit more difficult. The sender is so large that it hit the Holley Street Dominator manifold. We scrounged around the shop and luckily found a fairly tall 90-degree fitting that worked for us. Keep that in mind when you go to install yours.

7 The last sensor to install was the pulse converter we got from Classic Dash. It simply threads right where the factory speedo cable went. This will convert the mechanical spinning of the transmission into an electrical pulse that the gauge can then convert into needle movement. Even though this is not an Auto Meter product, it is fully compatible with the gauges.

8 The gauges do not come with the wire needed to hook up the sensors. You have two options when it comes to the oil, water, and tach. You can use the factory wires and change the terminals, or you can run new stuff. We decided on the latter because we needed to run new wires for the pulse converter anyway. All the wires were kept away from hot things like the exhaust system. We ran our new speedo harness right where the factory speedo cable was.

9 With the wires routed from the sensors up to the dash, we started assembling the cluster. Since we ordered a predrilled version, all the gauges went right in. The Classic Dash piece also has all the correct mounting provisions for the other stuff like the headlight and wiper switches, and the heater controls.

10 We ordered the LED lighting kit from Classic Dash so we would have turn and high-beam indicators. It comes with a red LED for brake, but we left that one off. The panel is not drilled for these so we chucked in a 5/32 drill bit and made three new holes. The housing of the LED is tapered, so once its all the way in the hole they are tight.

11 Lucky Costa from Mobile Tech was already at the shop doing something else so we asked him to wire up the gauges. Following the wiring diagrams that came with the gauges he hooked everything up here on the bench and wired it all to 8-pin plug he got from the local industrial supply house. Instead of running six separate illumination and ground wires Lucky ran from one gauge to another, which left only one wire each to run down to the plug. The plug will make removing the cluster very simple if we ever need to get it out.

12 Lucky terminated the wires that were in the car to the other end of the plug. Since we had Lucky there we didn’t have to find a schematic of the factory wires, but to save you the trouble a quick breakdown is shown above (See Factory Wiring Color Guide.)

13 Now the cluster was ready to go in the car. The Classic Dash panel fit like it was designed, but we had a clearance issue with our dash pad.

14 An upholstery shop covered our dash pad, and while it looked just fine the added thickness of the foam and vinyl was interfering with our cluster. Instead of trying to redo the covering on the pad we decided to pick up a new unit from Original Parts Group. The new pad has been reproduced to factory specs, with an ABS vinyl outer layer with foam underneath, and the correct grain.

15 The new dash pad fit like a glove and cured our clearance issue. It was pretty easy to install since we already had the dash torn apart and it comes will all new hardware.

16a Now that the cluster fit without issue, we plugged it in and screwed to the dash right in the factory holes. The steering wheel we had on the car is from a second-gen Camaro and was not only missing the horn assembly the spokes covered most of the gauges from view. We decided to complement the stainless gauges with a new Comfort Grip wheel kit we got from Classic Industries.

16bNot only does the finish match the gauges, the spokes are laid out in such a way that we can see all the gauges clearly. We had to remove the little snap ring to remove the lock plate from the steering column to get it to fit, but we suspect that was due to the fact we had an adapter for a tilt column not a straight one. The wheel adds a ton of style to the overall look and allows us to see all our new needles.

17 Since the illumination on the new gauges is LED, the factory headlight switch won't dim them like the incandescent bulbs, so we wired in the dimmer Auto Meter offers. It simply interrupts the main power feed to the light circuit and allows us to dim the gauges just like factory. We mounted it right below the cluster out of sight, but not out of reach.

18 The final piece of the puzzle is installing the lower dash piece from Classic Dash. This piece screws directly to the dash panel but the holes are not drilled just to give you a little room to adjust if needed. We drilled four 1/8-inch holes before installing the screws.

19 With everything ready, we hit the key and the gauges acted like a new car and ran up, then came down to zero. Since the fuel gauge is made for our sender's ohm rating it reads a little over a quarter-tank, which is what it should be since we put in six gallons of gas in the 20-gallon tank. We fired up the motor and the rest of the gauges came to life. The last thing we needed to do was set the speedo per the instructions, which is basically put the gauge in set up mode and then drive a marked two miles. After that we just sat and stared at how cool all our new stuff looks, and you can tell by the lead image thing get even better at night.