Custom Duster Gauge Panel

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392Mopar

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Just finished up a custom gauge panel for my 72 Duster and thought I'd share. I took an extra cluster I had that was beat up, cut out the back except for a small lip. Then I bought a peice of carbon fiber, and made a templete and cut it to fit inside lie and insert. Then figured where I wanted everything, cut holes for gauges and switches, and epoxyed the carbon fiber panel to the original gauge cluster, painted and installed new gauges and wiring harness. I just need to match the harness to the car wires then I'm ready to install.

Never liked the cheap plastic carbon look panels available so I made one of my own.

Heres a couple pictures.

Butch
 

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Nice Job! Looks great man. I just started a thread on this discussing custom or aftermarket gauge panels for our cars. If you have any tips, pointers, or dimensions, let me know. I'll be starting my project like this tomorrow night.
 
Thanks guys, yeah I'm happy with the way it turned out. I'm also going to make a carbon fiber insert for a factory style center console to tie it all together.

The LEDs I got off ebay, they were cheapAlso got the carbon fiber sheet off ebay.

As for tips, if I was going to do it again, I would have just dremeled off the high ridges of the old panel, then made the insert and only cut out what I needed off the old cluster to slide in the gauges so I could just attatch the panel to the cluster with screws or something, the epoxy was messy. But it does give it a cleaner look. Or it would just give more surface to epoxy, but it worked good and is super strong. I ended up buying painless wiper and headlight switches but the new wiper switch didnt have enough termnals for all the wires, so I just ended up using the stock wiper and headlight switches and the painless knobs so everything would work right and save on wiring time.

Butch
 
Looks great. Love the gauges and leds too.

I am too cheap and just made mine from stainless sheet metal. Dulled 2 hole saws in the process.
 
Love it all. What about high beam indicater? Didn't see a blue LED.
 
Red one is for high beams. Wasnt thinking when I bought them and got a red instead of blue, I can live with it!!!!

Butch
 
HawaiiDuster said:
Looking good!!! I can't stand the fake carbon fiber either, good job on using the real thing. What light and wiper switchs did you use?
Click to expand...


I was going to use Painless switches, but couldnt get the wipers to function properly so I ended up just using the stock switches, but used the Painless knobs for a newer look. Plus it saved alot of wiring time.

Thanks for the coments guys, and its something anyone can do with a little patience and time!!!! Was hoping to get it in the car today but ended up working all night salting and plowing snow. Maybe tomorrow.

Heres an sneek peak how the console would look with an insert, and these were my other layout ideas. Ultimatelly I decieded I wanter the speedo and tach as cetered as posible on the column.
 

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I am just starting this project. I just bought an extra dash bezel.

Let me ask this. Were the original whiper switch and headlight switch easy to install? Not sure how the are secured to the bezel.

Your dash looks amazing. Very nice work.
 
My original switches went right in, they do have tabs on the back side to keep from spinning, I just bent out of the way and made sure there nice and tight, seems to be fine and dont move at all.

Heres a couple in the car, I love it.

Butch
 

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Your work looks outstanding. Really nice.

One more question. is your speedo electric or cable. If it is electric, is that a hard mod?

What size guages did you use? They look just great.
 
What a difference! Might be hard to watch where you are going and not looking at the dash, lol
 
Hey guys, thanks alot, appriciate the feedback. Ok, so it is an electric speedo and it was easy, just need a hall effect for the tranny(scews on where the speedo cable would) and 3 wires, then you plot out a 2 mile coarse to calibrate as per instructions. Only reason I went with electric was that I bought the gauge set used and thats what it came with.

The gauges are 3 3/8" for speedo and tach, and 2 1/16 for the rest, its a tight squeeze fitting all these in such a small cluster and be able to center the speedo and tach on the column, but as you see, its posible.

And sorry, no plans on making any, with 2 kids I barely have enough time to get my own stuff done on the car. But really, take your time and plan it out and anyone could do it.

Thanks again guys!!!
 
Damn you! I have an extra cluster and I can't get a speedo to work in my car and was thinking of going electric. Now I am going to have to do one like yours because it looks absolutely incredible. That is a thing of beauty you have there. Nice work, and I hope to flatter you by imitating it!
 
Very nice. I noticed you have the lights and wiper controls opposite from my setup. Is that correct as shown or was it a fittment issue?
 
I dropped my aluminum panel off at the machine shop today to have the final holes punched. It's really not that hard, not to discredit the OP. He motivated me to make my own and I'm glad I did. I think it is going to look great. I will post up pictures here when I get it back (hopefully next monday).

Thanks again for the inspiration!

Also, I spoke to the guys at the machine shop and they said they wouldn't mind having small odd jobs like this. I could have them run off a few if anybody is interested. It is a smaller shop, so I'm hoping pricing will be reasonable. Once I get a final cost on mine, I will let people know and see if there is any interest.
In the mean time, would aybody want one of these made up?

-Mike
 
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