Are you stil planning on using the LEDs?

Very interested to see the final piece. I planned going with something pretty similar to that design but using fiberglass and wooden mounting rings.

 

looks great! My Grady White's cluster looks similar, 'cept it's a 2X3. Nice!!

 

The small rectangular area will be for auxiliary switches, like for my fog lights or something.

 

I ended up being able To fit three of the larger 2-5/8 inch gauge on the right which should be totally viewable, I hope...lol

 

Yes I'm still going to use LEDs for turnsignal indicators and for a high beam indicator and whatever else is normally in the stock panel. Let me know if you want a copy of the .psd file this panel to help you with yours.

 

Some pictures from today.

 

Very cool. Do it with a drill press or just hand drill?

 

All done on my drill press, I picked up a circle cutter at Sears to make the holes. I'm still debating on "engine turning" the aluminum. I like the 2gen dash, thats why I wanna do that.

 

My progress and test fitting for the day. What do you think?

 

That looks really nice.

 

Thats flat? I liked the idea of it "pointing at the driver".
I am making my rally, really curved, more the C4 stock dashes.

 

I mAy or may not leave it flat. The aluminum panel is pretty flexible, I could use a piece of mdf or plexiglass to prop up the passengerside to make it curve. I won't know this till I get it in the car. I'm
Also still undecided about what lights to use for indicators.

 

Summit carries warning lights and indicator lights in different sizes, but they are pricey $3-$9 each.

 

How about cutting small arrow shapped holes, covering them with some kind of tinted foil and then putting leds behind that? Cut shapes would look awesome on aluminum.

 

Looks great, I always liked the 2nd gen dashes too. When I made my gauge panel I had it brushed and anodized black. Makes me wonder how yours would look anodized with the pattern you have in it.

 

I made some progress tonight on the dash. I'll finish it up tomorrow after I finish putting the car back together with the new trans. Might post a vid, IDK, maybe..

Started at about 8pm with this:


Worked till midnight and i'm about halfway:

 

looks great i wanna do somethiing like this for my camaro how much did those gauges run?

 

The gauges ran about $700 from summit.

 

that looks really sweet!

 

You can usually get them a lot cheaper on eBay, but there used and most of them have dings in the rings or scratches on the faces. If that's the speedo it looks like it's the nice electric programmable one. I've never seen them really cheap on eBay. That's about the last one I need for my collection to start it in motion. I always thought it looked like a great idea being able to calibrate for tire swaps if you wanted to run some tall nittos one day instead of the normal street tires.

 

Almost done with the panel. I worked on the car today and got it back on the road, didnt have time to test drive it today.

 

Looks like you've got the same thing I did - new, beautiful engine (tough I had all polished and chrome) with a lot of dirt on the outside Good that my blowned up so I get paint engine bay this time

 

I'm loving how the engine-turned pattern is looking! I'm a big fan of the 2nd gens as well. very nice work!

 

okay so its all set, check it out!!! oh and a video of my car for y'all...

 

that looks sweet! Can't wait to see it installed. How'd you go about getting that look? I've always wondered how that was done.

 

It's called engine turning. It can be done with hand drill or drill press. Drill press tends to make it more controlled and nicer pattern overall. You can adjust the swirls by the bit size used and how much you overlap. I've read articles about using wooden dowel rods works as a bit works too.

 

i'm a bit confused. Do you put the bit in backwards or something to make it rub instead of cut through?

 

I know the wooden dowel methods I've seen use sandpaper. I would assume you could do the same with other bits if you loaded them backwards. I'm sure fiream can chime in on what he did.

 

COPYCAT!!!


jk
it looks good man!

 

It's not really cutting anything, think about it as polishing a swirl into the metal. I'm a "Cratex" brand ruberized abrasive. It's almost like an eraser but sandpaper like. I'll make a short video showing how it works when I get home tonight.

 

Here's a short vid

 

Thanks for posting the video. That's a pretty interesting technique.

 

Okay, who's ready too poop their pants?...LMAO!!!

 

Had a brain fart when I seen this thread come back up.

Would look cool to do the same thing but put all the smaller gauges in a cluter where the tach would go.

but what about the tach you say?

Get a Trans-AM hood tach


Best thing for racing, having the tach right in front of you in your line of sight, never having to look down.

 

Yea i was thinking hood tach, but im short so the dash is in my whole line of sight, so it works out..lol

 

Here we go, 90% done, I got all the lights I needed. Any suggestion? I was thinking about tinting it a little darkeror maybe painting the top above the upper bolts black maybe to break it up a bit, not so much silver. I dont know i'm so undecided..lol

 

Looks very nice to me. I'd just do the aux switch panel and install it. For wiring are you going to make your own connector to plug into the stock one in the dash?

 

If you don't want it so "bright" (reflective), you could try putting on a layer of window tint. Something real light, not like 5%, not even 20&. Go find something like the stuff that is mainly used for UV ray block that is like 50% or 80% (i forget which it is).

 

VERY COOL....

 

how did you wire your led turn signal indicators , i am trying to do something veary smilar to this only with a second gen dash panal and i am not sure how to wire them but led's would be ideal for what i am doing

 

I think you'll find that with this configuration your right hand and part of the steering wheel will block these gauges. I know my right hand does in my GTA. Its a pain as I often have to move my head to read the 2nd gauge pod from the right. Very annoying.

 

its pretty simple, the LED units themselves came from radio shack, i soldered wire on to them and then when the dash is in the car, i'll use quick splices to splice in to the factory harness for the power to the lights.

 

great job so far fire arm, can't wait to see the finished installed product.

 

So, I finished up the wiring for the lights today. I may have to get a very large resistor for the high beam indicator caus I think its going to be too bright even after nightshading it...lol What do you think? Light may look a bit croocked they're not tight in the dash, they're just sitting there...lol

 

haha wow that would get annoying really quick if the high beam light was that bright.

 

UPDATE: (06-06-11)

Magnum opus

— n
A great work of art or literature, esp the greatest single work of an artist.
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Okay so it 95% done, I got a few thing to finish up like the switch panel, and I have to decide which LEDs to use for Aux. lighting. Its pretty much done.

 

Looks good and is very reminiscent of the 70's T/A dash faces.

 

Exactly what I was going for!!!

 

Looks good....

What are the red LED's by the water & volts for? Warning lights?

 

Yes, the one over the volts gauge will be hooked up to the factory battery light, and then the one over the water temp will be hooked up to the factory brake light. All the lights will have removable spades at the end so if I need to change one to lets say a water temp light i'll be able to do that.