mdevlin
Registered Member
I have been working on a never ending rebuild on my 84 blazer. The biggest piece (in my mind) involved ripping all the wiring and the fuse box out, and installing a snazzy new painless wiring fuse box/wiring harness kit.
The problem i am running into is making the new setup not look like a hack job. I got all new autometer gauges to fix the broken non-working stock ones that came with the blazer, and I decided to run a painless toggle switch panel instead of using the keyed ignition on the steering column, so basically...
I am trying to figure out the best way to mount all the new autometer gauges, and the switch panel. It seems to me I am going to have to fabricate out of sheet metal a whole new dash, because modifying the stock instrument cluster to fit the autometer gauges ended up looking horrible. I basically dremel'd out all the holes in the instrument cluster to fit the larger non-circuit board style gauges, and cut a face plate that screwed over the plastic instrument cluster panel to make it look a little less messy, but it still looks crappy.
What I am envisioning is a whole new dashboard made out of sheet metal, with the automater guages bolted right down to the sheet metal, and then 2 hole cut out for a radio and the 6 toggle switch control panel. It seems "simple enough" but I am having trouble figuring out how to tie in this new panel to the curvy stock dashboard. Has anyone done any other custom dash jobs like this? any ideas/comments would be appreciated, this is pretty much the last step in a going on 3 year buildup, and I am kinda stuck in a nice deep hole I dug for myself.
BTW: my backup plan was to figure out something to screw into the exisiting instrument cluster location, and put all the autometer gauges on that. the use the hole for the A/C controls for the 6 switch panel, and use the radio hole for the radio, and call it a day, but it just seems like that isn't the best way...
The problem i am running into is making the new setup not look like a hack job. I got all new autometer gauges to fix the broken non-working stock ones that came with the blazer, and I decided to run a painless toggle switch panel instead of using the keyed ignition on the steering column, so basically...
I am trying to figure out the best way to mount all the new autometer gauges, and the switch panel. It seems to me I am going to have to fabricate out of sheet metal a whole new dash, because modifying the stock instrument cluster to fit the autometer gauges ended up looking horrible. I basically dremel'd out all the holes in the instrument cluster to fit the larger non-circuit board style gauges, and cut a face plate that screwed over the plastic instrument cluster panel to make it look a little less messy, but it still looks crappy.
What I am envisioning is a whole new dashboard made out of sheet metal, with the automater guages bolted right down to the sheet metal, and then 2 hole cut out for a radio and the 6 toggle switch control panel. It seems "simple enough" but I am having trouble figuring out how to tie in this new panel to the curvy stock dashboard. Has anyone done any other custom dash jobs like this? any ideas/comments would be appreciated, this is pretty much the last step in a going on 3 year buildup, and I am kinda stuck in a nice deep hole I dug for myself.
BTW: my backup plan was to figure out something to screw into the exisiting instrument cluster location, and put all the autometer gauges on that. the use the hole for the A/C controls for the 6 switch panel, and use the radio hole for the radio, and call it a day, but it just seems like that isn't the best way...
