In my bird it dose not have a tach. So I thought about pulling out some of the dummy lights and putting small gauges in the holes there are 12 of them. Do they make any guages that are smaller than 2 1/16 or did pontiac make any guages that would fit behind or slide in to the dash so I could replace the old fuel guage with a tach

 

An 87 w/o guages? That's fairly rare....I'd think twice before hacking up that faceplate and cluster, and find a cluster and matching faceplate from one with the guages already factory installed to swap in.
Your speedo is probably cable driven, so unless you find a setup from an 85, you'll need to convert to the electric speedo. Or you could use the ones from an 82-84, but they look a bit dated, plus you'd need to repin the plugs on the cluster.

Pete

 

Cool thanks
I will look around for a dash w/ the guages

 

This I gotta see, where in Austin are ya? I am in Leander.

 

I work at the Holiday Inn Express on 620 drop by anytime I work from 3-11 Tuesday thru Saturday
the guages on your t/a would work
now i know what to look for

 

My '87 Firebird has a speedometer guage and a gas guage, the rest are all little guages the size of a quarter.... I think 8 of them. It's weird...

 

Post pics of your current dash. Ive never seen a T/A with the basic dash cluster like that. I have got to see this.

 

I believe the panel was only availble on the base firebird, and I am not even sure if it was avialable with a V8, if it was it was LG4 only. The Formula, T/A and GTA had the Gage package standard, the T/A & GTA had the didgital gages as an option.

I have seen several, I almost bought two cars at one time from one guy that had a pair of them in cars, the odd thing was he had the deluxe interior with the molded armrests, V6's in both...
John

REDRAIF, cusomized hers, I think it looks pretty good too

John

 

This is not my car but I found one that looks like my dash

 

that is redraif's car I just realized that

 

That is exactly what my dash looks like... I've never seen one like that before and I've looked and been in hundreds of Firebirds and Camaros.

 

That dash is fugly, I cant believe your T/A has it. I would get the T/A dash fast.

 

Your 87 should have the electric impulse speedo.

 

The only Firebird from 86+ to get the cable driven speedos were those with that particular dash...

I just looked it up in the parts & illustration catalogs and it is #3 for 1987 (there was a total of 20 different IP's availble) differences I do not know. I orginally thought it was V6 only, but it is availble on the LG4 as well.

The LAST year was 1987 for the cable driven speedo, (EXC U18 EXPORT, GA-U21, DIGITAL-U52)

In short, the cable speedo was not available on the Firebirds equipt with GAGES, the DIGITAL gages, and the U18 Export options.

hope that helps.

John

 

Its a firebird...

 

OK I think Im screwed,
I had to buy a new rear-end today and when I was in the junkyard I noticed the guage plate w/ the tach and everything. So... I asked them if they could cut me a deal and they said they could do $40. But now when I opened it up I noticed that the tach says that it is for a 6 cylinder and when i tried to see if I had a cable speedo the guages would not come out so I think it is. The guage plate that I got is all electric. What should do? Is it going to be worth my time to try to ger a guage cluster with guages and not dummy lights?

 

for what it is worth, get a after market tach and save your cluster. im having problems geting my speedo hooked up i had elec speedo now going for cable. don t mess with that stuff . good luck have a nice day kevin

 

I have a cable driven speedo guage cluster out of my 84 TA that might work for you. I've had it on the classifieds for a little while. From what i remember, to detach the cable there's a small clip that has to be pushed in from behind the gages. It's a pain to get to but once you get it the gages come right out. I don't know if it would be plug-and-play for you or if there are potential compatability issues. PM me if you have any questions about it or if you're interested in buying it. later

 

I had the exact same cluster as JeremyNYR in my '84 TA before I swapped an all electric unit from a '90 (I think it was a '90 anyway...can't remember for sure) v-6 firebird in. When I bought it I didn't realize it was from a v-6, but I just used a signal converter box from Dakota Digital to make it work with my v-8 and that works fine. I really needed to convert to an electric speedo because I was swapping a t-56 in and having the electric speedo with the Dakota Digital speedo signal converter/adjuster just made my life much much easier. I know that to swap the later dash into my '84 I had to rewire the connector in the dash that goes into the back of the instrument cluster. It took time, but I just did it carefully and mapped out what wires should go where (also had the aid of my factory shop manual with schematics and a friend with a pencil and paper ) and I got it right the first time and it works just like stock! I would imagine that you could get an electronic VSS to go in your tranny so you could use the electronic speedo, but it all depends on how much work you want to do. Personally I love having the electronic speedo, but that's your decision. In any case you can get the tach to work by using a converter box like I did. Hope I helped some...good luck with whatever you decide to do!

-Paul

 

Here is the stats on my '87 Firebird which has the same dash (speedo, gas, and 8 quarter sized guages)

1987 Firebird, 2.8 V-6 Automatic, 84k miles, stock maroon/orange w/ gold base, black and orange pin stripes, waxoyl over the paint and some sort of special fabric coating on the tan interior. No power windows, no power locks, no cruise control, has a tilt wheel. no bulb connector under pass. side dash, has suck down hatch motor, no interior lighting, no cargo cover... that's about it. I've never seen a car like mine, much less the same color.