357MAGNOLE

Has anyone ever attempted, or considered taking single pedestal mounts and mounting them under the passenger side dash, angled towards the driver?

I wanted to run 3 gauges under my dash utilizing the speedhut gauge mount pedestals. Here is what I have so far. I understand that they are not in the field of view while looking at the road, however for my purposes they are perfect. The gauges all have warning lights that will easily get my attention while driving. A warning light = cease everything I am doing and pull over safely to assess the situation.

Gauges will be AFR/Oil Pressure/Water Temp

zeroptzero

I'm not a fan of gauges flashing in my face all day long, so no pillar mount for me, and I don't want to give up my radio controls like some people have them mounted in the controls.

I put my oil pressure gauge in a single holder under the driver side dash and I love it there, I can see it when I want to. I am going to mount an AEM wideband AFR gauge next and I was thinking of putting it underdash on the passenger side next, I haven't test fitted it but I will in due time, as it will be a winter project.

357MAGNOLE

I am very interested to see how it turns out for you. How do you feel about that location for that gauge in terms of sturdiness of the mount? That is my only real concern is if someone does end up in the seat and they bump it will the material its screwed into just break off?

I am thinking about removing that bottom section from the dash (if it comes apart) and fabricating some brackets out of aluminum. Maybe like a 8"x3" strip that will let me use bolts and washers to mount the gauges and spread out the pressure. Then probably using some form of vibration dampning like a rubber strip or even some 3M double sided tape on the outside of the plastic.

***EDIT***

The "Glove box" looking portion does indeed come off, just held in with some clips that pop in place. I pulled it out and i have about a 2 1/2"x10" stretch of flat surface that will be perfect to beef up and put some of these mounts on.

This is going to be a total test run, but I am going to go for it and see what I end up with. I think I will fill the back side in with some poly urethane or some JB weld quick set for extra support. Something that can be drilled through. I thought making some aluminum brackets would go well, but that would require grinding down the built in supports. So I am going to fill them, smooth it over and then add the brackets if I feel its still needed. I have a feeling that the fill in will be enough. Still need to come up with an idea for a vibration dampner on the other side.

357MAGNOLE

So I sat around thinking about this today and decided I would give it a shot and see how it all turns out. I wont really know anything for certain until I purchase the gauges and the mounts show up in the mail... But I will show anyone interested what I have come up with so far.

So first things first, I pulled the "Glove box" panel off of the dash.



Next I took some 250 grit sand paper and scorned the insides up pretty good, I then rinsed it out with Propyl Alcahol and gave it a good wipe down....



After that I used some Loc-tite epoxy to "Strengthen" the back side of the panel to help ensure against cracks and also add to the ability of it to support pressure of the gauges and hopefully in the event that they get kicked a little by some knees it will keep everything from breaking... Not sure if it will prevent that, but should definitely help.



I found this little pack of metal bars at the local store, I scuffed them up good and painted one side with engine enamel, then scuffed the other side and applied some 3M super sticky adhesive tape. Put them in some clamps and heated up with a heat gun (not too much, just enough to help with the initial seal)



After that I put them in place where I think they will work best on the panel. This gives me a good flat spot, closer to the top where I can play around and have some room to mount the gauges. If it doesnt work out no biggie, this is not a spot that stands out and if it does bother me it is a easily replaceable panel.



Clamped and used the heat gun on low again... All this time, the Epoxy has dried on the surface but is still soft on the inner layers.... So I took four screws and added them for more support....





I thought that although this is kind of a cheap fix and maybe a little on the redneck side the screws stood out pretty badly.... So I taped it up and sprayed it one more time with more engine enamel paint.



And now this is where I am at... The single gauge pods are in the mail, I dont have the funds (Christmas) for the gauges until Jan rolls around. But I will get the pods mounted up and have a better idea of everything some time this week or next weekend.

Chuck S

I like the looks of our AEM setup. (No car modifications.)

Does the AEM gauge sender piggy back on the existing sender? Same threads as the OEM sender?

-- Chuck

357MAGNOLE

Got a photo of that setup?

zeroptzero

Not sure if you were talking about my setup ?

If so then here is info on that. With my oil pressure setup I ran a flexible braided hose to the AEM sensor, everything I've read suggested running a flexible hose to a mounting point with the sensor rather than mounting the sensor directly to the block. Vibrations and large brass fittings can cause issues when mounted directly. I had a custom hose made up by a local hydraulic hose shop, every town probably has one of those shops (Parker Hoses, etc..) The end of the braided hose has the oem BSP threads and I mounted it into the oem sensor hole. I tossed out the oem sensor as it is useless. I made a custom mount for the AEM sensor out of basic everyday parts, I've been running this for a few years without issue.




One more pic of the gauge location from inside the cabin


General Hose dimensions,

357MAGNOLE

That is smooth boss. I really like what you did there. Make me up one and send it down to Virginia

zeroptzero

Actually the one in the picture is one that I had made for a member in the U.S., he wanted one like mine. But you can get them custom made over the counter pretty much at any company that supplies hydraulic hoses, every city must have a few of them. You can get any thread you want , plus any fitting needed for the connections. The company I used here was Parker hoses, they are a huge company with shops in pretty much every city.

357MAGNOLE

What else is needed other than the hose you constructed? Believe it or not I am having one hell of a time finding much information about setting up for oil pressure gauge and the water temp gauges.

I have seen some stuff about sandwich plates for the oil, and I have seen adapters that go in the radiator hose for water temps... But I dont want to cut the radiator hoses and then have to run ground wires... Just seems less clean.