Since the gauges were going away one by one

It was time to come up with plan "B". For a Xmas present for my oldest son I pulled a set of NOS Sun gauges off the shelf, drew up some plans, and sent it off to my buddy at SB products to machine a custom gauge panel. I wanted something custom but not "blingy"...... something to fit the van. Here's what we came up with. Excuse the crappy cellphone pic, and we still have a date with the belt sander to give it a brushed finish. Oh, and those 2 holes in the "O"s in Econoline? Turn signal indicators of course...

VERY niceeeeee!!

Nice indeed, be sure and post a pic of it after the install.

Looks GREAT!!!!!

That is cool!.. Good job!

Same here,, didnt want the bling, but wanted it to "look" kinda stock, until you really looked at them. Adapted Fomoco gauges to ours, goes into stock four gauge panel.
vic

Here is one out of the cab overs,,
vic

https://i.servimg.com/u/f19/14/19/23/47/100_0310.jpg

is it just me , or the pic came out like ????????
vic

https://i.servimg.com/u/f19/14/19/23/47/100_0310.jpg

Your Fomoco gauges look really bichin' Old Skool! Can you make me up a set for my '66 Econo van?

i like that..
are those stock from another fomoco vehicle?
if so, which one?

In four yrs, this is only the second set I have been able to put together, I sold the last set, and regreted it every since, so FINNALLY found the oil gauge for this set. The temp and the fuel gauges are not too hard to come up with, they were stock in the 60"s Ford pickups. The ammeter and the oil a little harder to locate. I think I posted a picture on how to bolt them into our four gauge box, not the idiot light ones, but the rarer four gauge ones for ours. I did make a jig fixture, to recut the two lower holes correctly in the mid panel, and also another setup to cut the lower two holes into a stock idiot liight clustter box. If you find the Fomoco gauges, simply swap the mounting plates on the gauges from our gauge onto the other, then it will mount directly into ours. Thanks for the compliments, if I can come up with some more of the oil and amp gauges, (will have to look in my stash box, LOL..) will post it.
vic

Hope this come through?????????? still fighting this picture thing,, dratzzzzz
vic

https://i.servimg.com/u/f19/14/19/23/47/100_0712.jpg

thats beautiful work.

Hey Guys, Old Skool,aka Vic in California,is hospitalized for the umpteenth time with heart problems. Im told he is supposedly in line for a transplant. Please keep him in your thoughts/prayers. He is a wealth of knowledge.

Thanks Tim. Just a blink of an eye, cause he's been on a lot recently.

EconoUSAparts wrote:Hey Guys, Old Skool,aka Vic in California,is hospitalized for the umpteenth time with heart problems. Im told he is supposedly in line for a transplant. Please keep him in your thoughts/prayers. He is a wealth of knowledge.

I sent him an email a few days ago and hadn't gotten a response..... hope all is well.

We're finishing up the wiring on the panel and will be installing the assembly this weekend. Wound up getting 5mm green LEDs for the turn signal indicators. It was a LOT easier than trying to adapt the the original bulbs to the new panel. Thing is, the LEDs are BRIGHT...... they'll light up the interior at night when they're on! The only issue is going to be adapting the fuel sender for use with the Sun gauge. Good thing it gets good gas mileage.....

Another little issue is how to tie the gauges into the existing wiring. The circuits push on to the posts of teh gauges and I really don't want to start cutting and splicing if I don't have to. I want to be able to pull this assembly off and put the old one back in easily should he decide to sell the van. What I'll be trying is using a crimp-on lug, remove the plastic insulator and use the round "tube" where the wire goes in to be crimped as a "post".
I also ordered some BA9s wide angle LEDs for gauge illumination to try to cure the anemic lighting. It's a pain to see gauges at night, and since these are 3 times as bright as filament bulbs, the dimmer should actually DO something! I have blue and bright white coming, and if they work I'll probably start stocking them as options for the vintage Sun gauges I sell. We'll find out Saturday night....

Finished up installing the new panel yesterday. Here's a few pics and tips I came up with along the way.
I didn't want to hack the harness any more than I had to, so I had to come up with a way to use the original gauge push on connectors on the new gauges. I took the insulation off a lug, opened it up just enough for a firm connection and voilla, no cutting required (for these circuits).


Here's the back of the panel after finishing the wiring layout.

Finally, the before and afters
Before

Now

Looks fantastic! Glad to hear your figured it out...

Dan

Very cool!!!!!! Looks way better than stock

G-Man wrote:Very cool!!!!!! Looks way better than stock

Thanks, the kid is happy and that's all that matters. He now has a complete working set of gauges with oil pressure and volts instead of idiot lights. One thing about using LEDs though. Unless you buy wide angle LEDs, they are directional. That means they shine straight out the front in a really intense beam. We got lucky that the beams shine just above his eyes and onto the roof. Kinda spooky at night as it lights up the cab when they flash. If they hit him in the eyes I would have had to go to plan B (whatever that would have been).
I have a shipment of wide angle LEDs coming today that are a direct replacement for the stock cluster bulbs. I'm going to try them out in my '68 Mustang to see if they cure the lousy dash lights it has. If they work as I think they will, it'll be a Godsend to all early car owners that struggle with bad dash lighting.

Most modern LEDs are way too bright to use as dashboard waring lights without connecting a resistor to it first.

I used a potentiometer and experimented until i got the right sort of brightness and then just took a measurement of the resistance and found the nearest resistor value to this amount. Different colours require a different resistor value as well.