I am looking at purchasing some Autometer guages for my 1986 Trans am. The factory oil pressure gauge gave up the ghost as well as the temp guage being inaccurate... There is a printed circuit board behind the guage cluster... Will everything still work correctly if i put new gauges in that are mechanical (for the most part Voltmeters are obviously electrical along with fuel level guages ). Is there anything special I will have to do with that printed circuit board? I already know I will be taking the factory guage housing and doing some modifying to get it to accept new gauges. I am just wondering if I am going to find electrical gremlins causing problems in other systems...

 

I don't know how similar the 86 firebird is to the 86 camaro but I just did a complete gauge swap on my 86 camaro recently. All of my factory gauges were electric except the speedometer. I did not need the factory circuit on the back of the instrument cluster at all for the swap (although I did end up using parts of it to keep a factory look, it was not required). I just had to splice into the existing wiring harnesses / power / ground for the new gauges, and run wire from my T56 transmission sender to the new speedometer.

One thing to note, my autometer oil pressure gauge came with a new oil pressure sender and it was required for the gauge to work correctly. Using the stock sender (cause I tried it) the oil pressure gauge read 100+ PSI which was completely inaccurate. The temperature gauges also came with a new sender although I do not believe this sender was that much different that the stock, I did end up replacing it too.

I mentioned that I did use the circuit but it wasn't required, it's because in my swap I made it so that I used a stock housing, modified to fit the new gauges and kept my stock turn signals and warning lights intact.

 

If you want only the 2 gauges you can get a dual pillar pod to stick them in. I reccommend going with an electric oil pressure guage as if the mechanical one ever decides to leak its gonna make a mess plus hot oil on your leg isnt fun. Ive had it in rush hour traffic on the hwy when mine decided to crap out. or you can go with an entire gauge set up as thats what I did as well if you dont want to just put them in the pillar

 

well the good news is that since I can get around that printed panel with my guages I will replace them all. I will try to modify the existing guage cluster since it bolts right in. I think i will take that to heart on the oil pressure guage hot oil doesn't sound fun...