I am gonna be gettin my 86 2.8 back on the road again and I want it to survive, so I am thinking about putting an A pillar gauge pod with an oil pressure and engine temperature gauge so I don't get an idiot light when its too late and burn up another motor.

My question is what brand of gauges did you use?

 

You can get some from Sunpro, or Autometer. But I would suggest trying to convert your current idiot lights to the actual gauges from a newer car.

 

What gauges would I have to choose from? What year car etc

 

I know for a fact the 89 Camaros have actual gauges, but I believe the 88 cars did too.
But take my recommendation if you want to keep the stock look to your car, and don't want the gauge pillar there.

 

Regarding gauge swapping, I got and instrument cluster from an 89 Firebird that I want to put in my '86 and get rid of those %$#@* idiot lights. I haven't taken off the original dash yet (though I'm going to have to in order to find the short that seems to originate at the drivers door light switch) but it seems to be a bolt in project. Is any special wiring or sending switches necessary? Since I don't currently have a tach, but the replacement does, is anything additional necessary?

my86bird

 

When I've done this with early/mid 80's GM cars, I've had to swap around a few wires in the connector and occasionally add a wire or two.

You will likely need to add a tach wire, don't forget to add the tach filter, that is used with the factory tach, and coil.

The senders will need to change to the proper gauge senders.

I've used Auto Meter for years, only because I had them, and they were really the only game in town that had "good" gauges.

There are many more companies around now with better gauges, both looks and function.

I'm selling my Auto Meter gauges as soon as I can replace my boost and oil pressure gauges with something else I like.

 

if u do add an mechanical poil presure gauge do not use the nylon tubing that comes with the gauge, buy a copper line kit, eventually the nylon line will break and it will spray hot oil everywere.

on my turbo v6 car i run a mechanical oil pres but if u notice it was mounted on the hood cause i used nylon tubing since i had 100's of ft of the stuff, id replace the line every few weeks.
i never did get around to getting copper line and moving it in the car cause i swaped the gauge between oil presure and fuel presure, and fuel presure is one gauge i will never install inside a car