The tale of my custom dash and gauge clusters My Riviera is desperate need of more gauges, to start with I had a speedo and a gas gauge, everything else was lights. Light for engine too cold, light for too hot; not enough amps and finally the parking brake. I built a panel out of aluminum to mount the "big 4" in the stock radio opening, though the gas gauge was not connected. This worked well enough for me to tell when I was getting too hot and if the oil pressure was dangerously low but it didn't look right. I also needed a tach and a boost gauge. Here's what I did. Start out with the stock dash panel section Notice the area that looks like it could have a tach in the middle of the right "gauge", I looked into it but the gas gauge completely blocks it. Let's take a look at the back to see what's in the way back there. Oh boy, lots of printed card circuits, I'm not messing with that. Good news on the electrical stuff though the factory manual is very very detailed about what is what and I had it decrypted in around 5min. So I popped out the multifunction warning center thing and the clock in the top middle and began test fitting my 5in Autometer Designer Black tach and the matching Designer Black boost gauge. You can see the amount of light pipe like structure on the inside of the hole for the tach. I had bought a spare carrier to cut up but it was a cruise control carrier so had extra holes and relatively rare so I just cut up my original since it wasn't perfect anyway. There now it's out of the way To hold the tach in place I took the backing ring that held the original plexi labeling disc to the bezel and pie cut it so the entire tach would slip through and rest on the back side if the chromed bezel on the tach. I didn't take pictures of the rest of the work I did on clearancing the inside of that bucket, relocating the hold down spring for the bezel or running the wires out the back of the bucket to connect to an external tach wire and using ring terminals to pickup signals off of the stock wiring plug. What it looks like from the front.
With that done I got to work on the boost gauge in the clock position. This was a lot more work on getting it in there as the tach was pretty simplistic on how to mount it and what to cut. The tach is held in by a hook at the top and a set screw holding the bottom of the bezel down. The clock as held in with a pair of ears snapping into spring retainers. Notice the clock mounting cup is larger in diameter than the boost gauge; the gauge would fall right through so I had to put it into the mounting cup somehow. So I cut the gauge apart and this is what is inside of an Autometer mechanical boost gauge. To make it short I basically cut the stock clock mounting cup apart so it would keep the rim to bolt to the back of the bezel and then hold the boost gauge cup in place. I ditched the chrome bezel of the Autometer gauge but kept the lenses as they didn't have clock markings on them and used the "around the dial" lighting to get light onto the face of the gauge. The whole assembly is held in place using the mounting clamp from the gauge to hold the gauge against the carrier. Here's what the whole setup with wiring looks like from the back: The wires running off to the outside run to the gas gauge mounted in the console and the interior lights since I didn't find a way to tap into the stock wiring without cutting it up. I tested it with the nailhead and it worked great! Here's what it looks like in the car with new (I didn't take any pictures of the assembly of it) console gauge cluster made out of an extra radio mounting plate, some sheet steel, and JB weld body work. Yes I will be doing the speedo at some point but its $240 and the stock one works fine still so when I'm done with the have to haves and have $240 I'll take care of it.
Man thats some nice work. Be careful, you might have just started a new part time business. Make sure to post the pics when you do the speedo.
Thanks, I doubt it's good enough to make a business out. I'll get some better pictures when I get it installed in the car.
