1970 Dash Designs

Rodger · Post by **Rodger** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 12:09 am

Hola

In looking at the photos of the 1970 trucks I have noticed there is two differant dash designs. One has a car like design with a speedo that swepts from the left to the right and all has 90 degree corners.

The other design has round gages and a tack on the right of the speedo.

Why the differanence and which is considered the better???

meangreen · Post by **meangreen** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 1:41 am

i never noticed this...

mechaniclese · Post by **mechaniclese** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:36 am

The dash with the round gauges your talking about are the HD gauges. They were offered on the HPP trucks in 64,65 and 66. I don't think they offered them after 66. I might be wrong. Maybe some one changed them for a earlier set? Or someone might have made a custom round gauge set for the truck you saw.

OldDodges · Post by **OldDodges** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 7:13 am

There were two setups right on through '71, the regular design with the square like guages and then the heavy duty setup. The heavy duty setup design changed a little from the CSS trucks in the mid 60's.

I thought I had an updated pic of my setup on my webpage, but I guess I don't. I found the factory speedometer awhile back, mine had been replaced with a Mack speedo when I got the truck. Anyways, I found the factory 100mph guage and put it in. The HD setup is not an easy setup to find.

Kyle

Hemikuda71 · Post by **Hemikuda71** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 7:32 am

Guys, here is a question that I asked awhile back of Scott and Ben. I hope that it helps clear some things up on the use of these gauges.

R/T Wrote:

Ben or Scott I have a question about the HD gauges between the early years and the later years. For one I didn't know that they made HD clusters after the HPP trucks went away. But the question is did they still use the same 4 small gauges through all the years and change the speedo and the tac as it appears in the photo that Scott posted above. I've listed the link to my standard cluster for the '61 as it has the small gauges in it for reference.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c88/H ... ure060.jpg

Thanks.

R/T

Below is a link to the later style gauges off of Kyle's truck:

http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kyle019cj.jpg

And the answer to my qestion.

Ben Wrote:

i am not sure about this but i think the "heavy duty" round gauges started somewhere around 58 or 59 in the "big trucks".

the Town Panels use these type of round gauges in some form but were canted, did not have a tach and were in a narrower but taller pod.

then in 61 these gauges were used in the light trucks without a tach and sometimes came with a dummy light for an oil gauge. the big trucks (over the 300 series) used the tach cluster with a 4000 RPM cable driven tach. if a light duty truck wanted a tach it came with a 5000 RPM Sun brand electric tach (i am not sure when this was first offered) and could be ordered on any truck.

in 63, when the engineers were starting to plan the High Performane Package, they used the Heavy Duty instuments as a base and switched out the 5000 RPM Tach with a 6000 RPM tach - the all-chrome-faced 6K tach is unique to the HPP trucks. again, any truck could get the HD Gauges with a 5K Tach.

if i am not mistaken the HD Gauges could be had on any truck up thru 71. obviously the dash changed in 69 so Dodge cobbled together the best they could and came up with the square panel that you seen on Kyle's truck. all the square panel gauges that i have seen came with a 6000 RPM tach but it has a black faced SUn Tach with a chrome ring. i am not sure if they use an external sending unit.

so to answer your question - the basic gauges are all the same and will interchange to a degree BUT the later gauges use a different AMP gauge, the "pods" that hold the gauges to the plate will not easily interchage from the town panel style to the 61-68 pod style or to the 69-71 Square plate style because the 61-68's have a provision built into the "pod" to hold the light for the turn indicators.

Also in addition to the four different Tach offered over the years there were two or three different speedos, an oil gauge vs a dummy light and, to further complicate matters, there was the Chrome trimmed gauges vs. the brushed Nickel gauges...

clear as mud? visit this link for some of the different 61-68 HD Gauges i have put my hands on...

http://www.cssregistry.com/css/64d100Re ... /index.htm

There ya go! As Ben said "Clear as Mud"?

R/T

Hemikuda71 · Post by **Hemikuda71** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 7:45 am

And heres a set of HD gauges I bet some of you have never seen

Their out of an L600 tilt cab! Now I have hope of finding a set of these and putting them in my A-100 Pick Up!

R/T

'68 A-100 Pick Up

mechaniclese · Post by **mechaniclese** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 11:35 am

Was that that fargo tilt cab I found on e-bay?

Hemikuda71 · Post by **Hemikuda71** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:48 pm

Yes it is Brian!

R/T

Rodger · Post by **Rodger** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 8:40 am

Hola

I want to thank you who took the time to clear up the "muddy areas" of instrument pods.

It makes me feel good that I have the "creame of the crop" Heavy Duty instrument package ( all round gauges , no idiet lights, 100 MPH and 6 Thousand readings ).

I am not a 1970 W100 100 MPH driver, but I like the idea of it.

Thank You ....

Hemikuda71 · Post by **Hemikuda71** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 8:45 am

You can thank Ben: "CSS-Registry". He's done most of the research work on these gauges and the trucks that they came in.

R/T

frankyb · Post by **frankyb** » Wed Jan 21, 2015 3:46 pm

This is an old post but as I was researching HD Gauge's for Sweptline's I came across this post AND... there is very little info out there.

Users may find the following useful:
The version of Heavy Duty Gauge clusters for 69-71 Sweptline's include a 6,000 rpm tach on the left, then a 100mph speedo and to the right of the speedo are 4 gauages; oil, fuel, amps, water. As I understand it, these specific clusters could have been ordered on any 1969-1971 W or D100-D300 and 69-73 D400 through D800 Medium duty trucks.

The gauges are very rare and I could not find any pics available when I googled it just now during a 10 minute search.

Hopefully the below pics of my stock 1970 Dodge W200 dash may be useful ...

-FrankyB

Post by **Hobcobble** » Wed Jan 21, 2015 5:58 pm

Hey Frank,
Are you driving that W200 now?
How are things out in CA?....
Been back East recently?
John

frankyb · Post by **frankyb** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 1:49 am

I haven't been back east at all since that last trip but I will get there!! I've been driving the '70 for the past year as my work truck. It has been perfect with no issues at all. I think I posted some info on it last year at DodgeSweptline.org... Basically, it has a Dana 70 rear, Dana 60 front with disks (4.10's), NV4500, Hydraulic clutch, Hydroboost, true power steering, HD gauges & a 62 Poly. The ol' Poly is great but I have found a 1957 Hemi 392 and I am in the process of having it rebuilt. The first 3 digits on my stock black CAL license plate are "392" and that helped me decide to go with the 392 Hemi as opposed to a Cummins.
------------
I would like to learn more about the HD gauges... It seems that the gauges are the same except the tachs have varied... I would love to know how many Sweptlines came with those gauges, particularly the 69-71's... How can we tell if it came from the factory with the HD gauges? Is there a VIN tag code?

Here are pics of the pre 68 HD gauges (another members truck). Pictures of the pre 1968 HD gauges are plentiful. There aren't many pics at all of the 69-71 HD gauge setups. They had to use a different shaped dash plate but the gauges look the same to me, just organized on the plate differently... I usually see the Sun tach or Sun tach style on the earlier ones. Other than the tach, they look the exact same. Compare this early version to mine above.

soopernaut · Post by **soopernaut** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 7:53 am

frankyb wrote: I would like to learn more about the HD gauges... It seems that the gauges are the same except the tachs have varied... I would love to know how many Sweptlines came with those gauges, particularly the 69-71's... How can we tell if it came from the factory with the HD gauges? Is there a VIN tag code?

Here are pics of the pre 68 HD gauges (another members truck). Pictures of the pre 1968 HD gauges are plentiful. There aren't many pics at all of the 69-71 HD gauge setups. They had to use a different shaped dash plate but the gauges look the same to me, just organized on the plate differently... I usually see the Sun tach or Sun tach style on the earlier ones. Other than the tach, they look the exact same. Compare this early version to mine above.

The gauges are the same for all years, other than the tach. Some of the larger trucks used a different speedometer that didn't go to 100. There is nothing on the VIN plate for the standard HD gauge package. If other gauges were added, like Vacuum or Voltmeter, there will most likely be a SERT number on the VIN plate.

PwrWgnDrvr · Post by **PwrWgnDrvr** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:48 am

Hi Frank, the 69-71 HD gauges are around, but not very many. My 70 W100 has them.

frankyb · Post by **frankyb** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:59 pm

Thanks Bill & Terry! I just bought a second set, HD Gauge cluster on eBay for the 69-71's for a different truck, my green & white one that's been collecting dust for the past 8 years... It's a '66 but has the 69-71 dash frame. I'll need a nice set of Power Wagon emblems if anyone has 'em... I should probably start a new thread for that...

http://dev.thepropshop.com/trucks/66_powerwagon1.jpg

Sweptline.ORG

1970 Dash Designs

1970 Dash Designs

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