Gauge Cluster Refresh or What I learned by stuff being broken...
Oh and I forgot to mention, I'm adding a grounding pigtail to the screw that used to have the radio suppressor. I'm making it reasonably long so it won't have to be disconnected first before removing the cluster if I (heaven forbid) have to bring it out again.
I always added a male/female spade terminal disconnect about 4 inches from the inst' panel so my ground wire would unplug like everything else ( except amp gauge of course ). With a little extra effort you could end it behind the left kick panel mirroring how the heater case is grounded behind right kick panel.
Popular belief is using the speedy nuts was to save a coin. That isn't correct.
Those studs are swedged into a fiber board that gets even more brittle with age.
The engineering stand point and practice is, a weak stud gets a weak nut. It's contact at a single thread might seem inadequate but it did work.
Those studs weren't plated and would rust. Some so bad that the speedy nut wouldn't back off. The speedy nut is easily cut off. I had to do that once or twice. To cut off a standard hex nut wouldn't be so easy. In a couple cases the owner had already cracked the fiber board before throwing in his towel and shipping his mess to me.
The amp gauge got standard hex nuts and toothed washers and sure they cost more but... There is no fiber board on that gauge or circuit board contact. There is heavy ring terminals and wires hanging from those more rigid anchored studs plus much more contact required.
The rest of the story... The producer of those studs for thermal gauges knew it would get a pizz poor nut so their quality control could be lax. I found a few of these studs that a standard 10-32 hex nut would not go on.
To run a 10-32 die over one of those studs, knowing how easily the board would crack, was tedious/nerve racking. Yep, did that many times too. Of course most of my practice was focused on those gauges that have 3 studs and 50 years old. What you have is newer and a bit different.
There came a time when my reusable stock was depleted, so I produced a half dozen of the early type boards by hand from F4 fiberglass and re swedged donor studs into them. I think I paid 30 to get the swedge tool made ( R.I.P. Bill ). I quit the gauge service before using all of those boards.
