Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Gauges...Part 1

Ok, so exciting news! I have booked shipping for the mustang. A company is going to pick it up from my parents' house this weekend, and it will show up at my house on Monday! I'm SUPER stoked!

OK now with that out of the way, let's move along to a little tech info. I've been keeping myself busy by doing whatever I could. One thing I'm going to be working on is the gauge setup. My preference would be to get some AutoMeter gauges, or something like that, but that was cost prohibitive, and this is all about bang for the buck. So I've decided to modernize my old gauges, by applying a white-face kit. I ordered a kit off eBay from this store.

The kit from eBay seller irish.swede was very cheap, and came quickly, with a lot of neat customization options. However, I wish I'd known, and I think everyone interested in this kit should know, that it was just a half-letter sheet of sticker paper with the new gauge faces printed on it with what I assume was a color laser printer. I paid about 10 bucks for it, so I cannot complain, but in the end, this is a lot skimpier than I guessed. I would have loved to order a really sweet electroluminescent package...but, again, 100 dollars for that kit, and 10 dollars for the one I bought.

Another thing I'm working on fixing is replacing the Amps gauge that I pulled out of the car years ago. Amps gauges are crappy compared to a good Voltmeter, but to give the gauge cluster a nice uniform look, I'm going to replace the amp-gauge I removed. So I put up a post on the Vintage Mustang Forums, saying I was looking for one, and a guy emailed me to tell me he had one to sell. I bought it and a few days later received it. The other night I decided to go ahead and apply the white face kit to it...and here are the results:
I think it looks pretty good! the instructions just said to cut out the sticker and apply it, but I actually took the face and put on a two coats of silver paint, followed by a coat of white. I thought the silver would completely black out the existing gauge markings, AND would give the white a more reflective quality. I'm probably full of shit, but that was the theory. Then I carefully trimmed up the sticker and applied it.

BUT I still believe a car needs a volt-meter, so I found an equus unit on amazon for 9 bucks!
Now Equus is notorious for being the "gauges they sell at wal-mart." True, but 9 bucks! Serious bang for the buck! I got the gauge tonight and am throwing a picture up here. I think it looks great. My plan ist to buy a mounting cup for this gauge, and mount it next to the tach on the steering column. I think it's going to work out nicely!

Hopefully the next post will be the arrival of the mustang to my driveway!!