Attempt at a home made dash cluster..

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fcm42000

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Work in progress, can't decide how to orientate the gauges, if you center them with the steering wheel it moves everything to the right, unless you do the three off to the left side, and I don't like how that looks. unless I put 4 a/c vents in the dash to make every thing symmetrical but that would be A LOT of work and I don't know if I am going to use a/c yet.

So , I will probably center one of the big gauges over the steering wheel and put the other one off to the left, although that isn't symmetrical either , but i think it is the closest to symmetrical way to do it. Making the tunnels for the individual gauges is going to be the challenge, need to get into a geometry to figure out how to calculate a diagnoly cut cylinder with the +- 37 degree angle that I am working with, card board templates might be the best bet.

The spot welds cleaned up nice and I did a lot of them so there would be as much filler needed before it gets painted.

I will order my gauges next week, probably speedhut, they are having a sale and there gauge quality is great.

Total I think it will be less than 20 bucks in metal to do this.
 

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progress....

ordered the gauges, moving to the headlight switch to the right somewhere, coming together a lot better than i thought, amazing when you don't drink what you can do.

need to make the retaining rings for the back of the tunnels then weld them in place.
 

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anyone who says rocky mountain dashes were overpriced doesn't know what they are talking about, this was a lot of work and I still need to fill all the low spots. Aluminum would be easier to work with if you had a proper shop to do it in, but for a guy in a garage, steel is more forgiving.

my gauges will be in this week so I can cut out the tach and speedo, i used a spare volt meter as a template to cut out the small holes, and I already put the guts from the volt meter in my old gauge panel so I will be selling that soon, seeing how most people want a volt meter in their stock cluster.

Been thinking about making a mold of this dash and making copies out of fiberglass if anyone is interested, DEFINITLY would not be a ready to install piece but a good starting place and an option to that flat panel redline thing. thinking 150ish and you would have to final sand it and paint it.

Next week I will focus on getting it ready for paint, there will be some filler needed to get the imperfections out.
 

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Really looks like an outstanding beginning.... you do have visual clearance for the dash pad as it relates to the top of the large gauges? A friend did one similar and when he put the dash pad in he could not see the top numbers on the gauge LOL he was pissed but he got over it and moved it down a tad....luckily he pre-fit before he "finished" everything
 
Dash pad should be fine, thanks for the heads up, I will verify tonight.

My gauges came in from speedhut, they are backlit, and all electric.
 

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WELL...

Got some more work to do, i warped the metal to the right of the speedometer and I thought I could even it out with body filler, ain't gonna work, got to cut that piece out, DAMN IT! At least the buckets are decent, to bad the buckets need to be hand sanded so that will take some time.

I really like the gauges, also need to cut the holes for the speedo and tach.

The edges of the buckets will need some detailing too..
 

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Man you do some dang nice work there. This is gonna be cool.
 
this was a lot of work, gonna turn it over to the body shop for the detail sanding, like they say, good enough for government work
 

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Interested in how you built the flanges for the tubes/cups. Do you have any pics of the back the cluster in-progress?
 
Awesome!Dash will separate your car from the common that's for sure.
Will the body shop also be doing a fiberglass mold? I am interested in purchase..
Kudos on the final product and money saved!
 
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