Autometer guages in the stock dash faceplate
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 118
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From: Florida
Car: '83 Camaro
Engine: LS1
Transmission: T56
Axle/Gears: 3.23
Autometer guages in the stock dash faceplate
A member here was asking some questions about how I did my gauges so I figured I would make a thread so the information would be available to everyone.
Well I was trying to keep it looking somewhat stockish. If you want to go the easy way out I would just goto hawks thirdgen parts and get one of their preassembled panels.. http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/in...S&Category=256 If I had known about those before I hard already bought some gauges I would have done that. The price ends up about the same and you don't have to worry about messing it up.
Anyway, I uses a hole saw (2" I think) to cut the holes for the three smalls ones. They slid in and stayed tight without any brackets. The 5" gauges were a bit tougher, I just used my dremal to shim away little by little until they would fit. I almost messed up one side as it was loose, but I used the black mounting piece that comes with it to keep it tight.
As for wiring. Diagrams are your friends. I cut and spliced the wires for the turn signal, check engine light, and brake light from the right side harness. I cut most of the white plastic backing that was there and only kept the lower half for the light placements.
The wiring was the hardest part. I can try to get a pic of how I did it but it's a real mess behind the panel with wires everywhere. That will have to wait though as my carpets are drying in the house and I can't get to my tools.
Good luck. Thanks, do you happen to have a front view of the gauges I am just trying to get an idea on how close things are. Did you have any issues on the plastic cracking at all. What about the 2 bottom screws on each side of the steering column. Since there is nothing behind it to secure to.
It's not easy to explain without using pics so I snapped a couple quick ones that should give you a good idea of how I did it.
The main issue is how to handle the turn signals, check engine and the parking brake lights. The turn signal wires are soldered directly to the back where the light bulbs plug in. The wires are soldered directly to the light itself. I don't have a pic of that but you attach the wires directly to the metal leads that are on the lightbulb. They stick out the back so it's fairly easy to wire them up.
How can you have the light bulbs even in there and what are they mounted to you ask? Well the white plastic thing they were mounted in to begin with. In order to use the autometer gauges you have to cut away the entire top half and only use a small section of the top part. Here is what's left of my white backing piece.
As you can see I cut the thing in half then cut out the small middle section of the top piece that has the two bolt holes and the turn single tubes. This way that top middle part can still be used to hold the turn signal lights in the correct position and the two bolt holes allow it to line up perfectly. At first I tried to super glue the little green filters to the end of the turn signal tubes but that wouldn’t work so I used two of the green bulb filters that came with my autometer gauges and just put them on the turn signal lights.
I did have to notch the turn signal tubes a bit for the gauges to fit nicely. You can see that here..
Now, onto the bottom right light cluster. I cut the green printed circuit plastic sheet to separate the bottom right section that the light cluster uses. Here is what I didn’t use..
This allows you to do no wiring except for connecting the new signal wire for the check engine light (you can see that spliced in here.. You can also see the white plastic mounted on the bottom.. Just make sure you leave the bottom right white plastic part that connects the printed circuit leads to the adapter. If you screw that part up you are done for.
That was pretty much it. I did have to take a small bit off the very top of the console where the gas gauge is as it was hitting due to the length of the autometer gauge.
The tri cluster gauges are all touching or almost touching..
I put two extra gauges in an A pillar kit from summit, fuel pressure and oil pressure. The oil pressure was originally embedded in the stock speedo and omitting that gauge did not seem like a wise decision to me.
Here are some more pics that may or may not help..
http://dingle.ls2.com/Pics/gauges_installed 006.jpg
http://dingle.ls2.com/Pics/gauges_camao 009.jpg
http://dingle.ls2.com/Pics/gauges_camao 008.jpg
http://dingle.ls2.com/Pics/gauges_camao 006.jpg
Any more questions feel free to post and I will do my best to answer. The next time I have to dig back in there I will take some more pictures but for now, this is the best you will get. All those wires are not fun to deal with. Oh and I posted this in here because all this work was for the LS1 swap so it seemed appropriate.
Originally Posted by 1982Camaro383
Originally Posted by dingle
Originally Posted by 1982Camaro383
I came across a pic of your autometer gauges in the stock dash panel. I have a 1982 Camaro and am looking to do the same. How did you have to modify the panel to get them to fit and how did you wire the turn signal indicators to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please send me a message here or email me at ...
Thanks,
Justin
Thanks,
Justin
Anyway, I uses a hole saw (2" I think) to cut the holes for the three smalls ones. They slid in and stayed tight without any brackets. The 5" gauges were a bit tougher, I just used my dremal to shim away little by little until they would fit. I almost messed up one side as it was loose, but I used the black mounting piece that comes with it to keep it tight.
As for wiring. Diagrams are your friends. I cut and spliced the wires for the turn signal, check engine light, and brake light from the right side harness. I cut most of the white plastic backing that was there and only kept the lower half for the light placements.
The wiring was the hardest part. I can try to get a pic of how I did it but it's a real mess behind the panel with wires everywhere. That will have to wait though as my carpets are drying in the house and I can't get to my tools.
Good luck.
It's not easy to explain without using pics so I snapped a couple quick ones that should give you a good idea of how I did it.
The main issue is how to handle the turn signals, check engine and the parking brake lights. The turn signal wires are soldered directly to the back where the light bulbs plug in. The wires are soldered directly to the light itself. I don't have a pic of that but you attach the wires directly to the metal leads that are on the lightbulb. They stick out the back so it's fairly easy to wire them up.
How can you have the light bulbs even in there and what are they mounted to you ask? Well the white plastic thing they were mounted in to begin with. In order to use the autometer gauges you have to cut away the entire top half and only use a small section of the top part. Here is what's left of my white backing piece.
As you can see I cut the thing in half then cut out the small middle section of the top piece that has the two bolt holes and the turn single tubes. This way that top middle part can still be used to hold the turn signal lights in the correct position and the two bolt holes allow it to line up perfectly. At first I tried to super glue the little green filters to the end of the turn signal tubes but that wouldn’t work so I used two of the green bulb filters that came with my autometer gauges and just put them on the turn signal lights.
I did have to notch the turn signal tubes a bit for the gauges to fit nicely. You can see that here..
Now, onto the bottom right light cluster. I cut the green printed circuit plastic sheet to separate the bottom right section that the light cluster uses. Here is what I didn’t use..
This allows you to do no wiring except for connecting the new signal wire for the check engine light (you can see that spliced in here.. You can also see the white plastic mounted on the bottom.. Just make sure you leave the bottom right white plastic part that connects the printed circuit leads to the adapter. If you screw that part up you are done for.
That was pretty much it. I did have to take a small bit off the very top of the console where the gas gauge is as it was hitting due to the length of the autometer gauge.
The tri cluster gauges are all touching or almost touching..
I put two extra gauges in an A pillar kit from summit, fuel pressure and oil pressure. The oil pressure was originally embedded in the stock speedo and omitting that gauge did not seem like a wise decision to me.
Here are some more pics that may or may not help..
http://dingle.ls2.com/Pics/gauges_installed 006.jpg
http://dingle.ls2.com/Pics/gauges_camao 009.jpg
http://dingle.ls2.com/Pics/gauges_camao 008.jpg
http://dingle.ls2.com/Pics/gauges_camao 006.jpg
Any more questions feel free to post and I will do my best to answer. The next time I have to dig back in there I will take some more pictures but for now, this is the best you will get. All those wires are not fun to deal with. Oh and I posted this in here because all this work was for the LS1 swap so it seemed appropriate.
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From: 39.84N 105.11W
Car: '89 Trans Am GTA
Engine: WAS 350 - now L92 (alum. 378/6.2L)
Transmission: WAS 700R4, now a built T56
Axle/Gears: 3.27 9-bolt
Re: Autometer guages in the stock dash faceplate
NICE, thanks for the write-up! I'll admit that I was initially wondering why you put it here, but since I've taken the time to read your post, I'm glad you did - there's some decent info, & I might be able to use some of this for my own project... 
Junior Member
iTrader: (2)
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 28
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From: WI
Car: 1984 Z/28
Engine: L92 6.2L
Transmission: M12 T56
Axle/Gears: 3.73
Re: Autometer guages in the stock dash faceplate
I'm interested in doing these gauges for my L92 swap. How much $ did the gauge swap run? Thanks. Looks great.
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 43,187
Likes: 43
From: Littleton, CO USA
Car: 82 Berlinetta/57 Bel Air
Engine: L92/LQ4 (both w/4" stroke)
Transmission: 4L80E/4L80E
Axle/Gears: 12B-3.73/9"-3.89
You can price the individual gauges on www.summitracing.com.
I'm wondering about mounting an electrical speedometer only in place of the factory mechanical, behind the factory face plate. I have a Cable X box, but finding a decent place to mount it, and not knowing if the stupid thing even works (didn't when I tried to hook it up) have got me thinking of taking the easy way out.
I'm wondering about mounting an electrical speedometer only in place of the factory mechanical, behind the factory face plate. I have a Cable X box, but finding a decent place to mount it, and not knowing if the stupid thing even works (didn't when I tried to hook it up) have got me thinking of taking the easy way out.
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