This is an improvement that I really wanted to do, but procrastinated for years, 'cause all the OEM gauges were working. Well, finally the Water Temperature gauge and the Fuel Level gauge decided to go belly up. Hmmmm, I guess if I wanted to know these things, it was time to start fabricating. The actual work was not as hard as I imagined. My favorite saying is "it is just work"!
I started with moving the radio up to the center of the roll bar. Next, I hauled out my pneumatic body saw, mapped out the intended hole, and started cutting, being carefull of the wires behind this mess. With the hole cut, I found some aluminum plate and laid out the gauges. I wanted the 2 5/8" Autometer gauges, and I wanted a mechanical oil pressure, full sweep gauge. That purchased, I found that there was no reason to use the OEM speedo as I was not going to use most of the OEM stuff anyway, so I purchased an electronic VDO speedo. The final product is pleasing to the eye and easy to read. One thing that really turned out neat, is that the VDO speedo is calibrated by driving an exact mile. With all the gear changes, tire changes, etc., this now means that I have a speedo that is calibrated for my Jeep. Yaaaa, I know how fast I am going.
The following pictures show you the process I went through.
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