Yesterday I noticed my oil pressure gauge was showing some low readings which I didn't believe so given the 34 year age of the gauge and my own wonder as to the accuracy of the instruments I decided to play out with the old and in with the new. I bought the Sport Comp II series from Autometer in the 2 1/8" diameter. After removing the center dash section I figured out the install was going to be fairly straight forward, however a few original pieces would not be reused due to the additional depth of the new gauges. The plastic lense wasn't needed and couldn't be used along with the metal back plate where the original light bulbs were installed, not a problem since the new gauges have their own lights. The only real glitch is the Fasten Seat Belt warning light along with the Door Ajar and Headlights warning indicators, both are held in place by the backing plate which also holds the bulbs. In my case the only one that works is the Fasten belts so no big deal, I did tape the bulbs in place so it does illuminate.
I chose a full sweep water temp, and the rest short sweep - oil press, fuel level, trans temp and Voltage. I made up all my wires for the lamps inside and used flat solderless connectors to grab power from the original connectors. The sending units came with each gauge and I did use each of them. The hardest one was the trans temp which required removal of the trans oil pan to drill a 1/2" hole to install a modified oil pan drain plug that I had to increase the size of the inner hole to accept the diameter of the temp sensor probe. Since the drain plug kit comes with nylon washers a separate ground wire had to be installed between the probe and the drain plug nut. The photo I took was before I figured out the washer was preventing a ground. Afterwards 4 quarts of tranny fluid and I was ready to fire it up.
End result is a modern look along side the original speedo and tach (which I finally found a good circuit board for last week) and it's nice to have accurate gauges now. The oil pressure alone shows 10 psi more over the stock gauge and the fuel level reflects almost a 1/4 tank more than the stock gauge. If anyone is thinking of doing this or decides to do so and has a question feel free to ask away.
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Link to my Youtube page with videos showing different stages of my corvette resto/mod
Autometer Gauge Cluster
Linear Mode
