First I ordered an NOS gauge from an early Chevette (i know
) but USPS lost it. Then I ordered a 95 Jeep piece but when it came I couldn't figure out how in the heck to hook it up or mount it. I found this little Gem from Summit:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331109695738
Here you can see where I have removed the metal face ring. AFter that I went around the glass seal (thin black metal) and pried it back with a flat screw driver (along the seam). Once I had those 2 pieces off, I un-bolted the mounting nuts from the back of the canister and slid it out. What I was left with was a bare gauge with 2 studs similar to the AMP gauge. The face is made of thin plastic. The bulb that comes with the gauge is a push in style filament. I grabbed some green LED bulbs to use in my gauges and radio.
You will see that I test fitted it with a 68 style gauge face and then an earlier round gauge face but using the 68 housing. You could mount it lower in the housing in order to show the numbers better. At the moment I don't know if I will just cover the Summit logo or if I will use the gauge overlay to make it appear like an AMP gauge. The one small problem is going to be that it is round and the stock gauge is sqaured off. The problem will result in some of the sticker overhaning with nothing to stick to. Leaving it alone will result in a bit of air space between the outside of the gauge and the faceplate. At the moment (untested) I have it mounted in the housing with the 2 studs. 1 will receive ground simply by being directly bolted to the housing which grounds with mounting and via a white wire that runs to the fuse block mounting screw(s). I isolated the positive side with a firewall grommet found at NAPA. Outer diameter of that grommet is 7/16" with roughly a 1/4" opening. I drilled out one of the factory AMP gauge holes and left it centered where the original gauge was. Here is a link to the white gauge overlays (you can get any color or go black for an extra $30
a little pricey for "stickers"I could get really creative and remove the plastic gauge face and replace it with the AMP gauge face but the mounting holes are slightly off so I would have to have an adapter. I thought about cutting up another gauge for the thin aluminum to use as an adapter but not thinking that I'll go that way.
Also, I really wanted to run the early gauge face but I am not ready to spend time modifying everything (mounting lower) in order to run the 68 gauges. I wanted to run the cream colored gauges but they were a little too beat up and they will clash with the white stickers or white volt gauge. I will update everyone with pictures and feedback.
