Dash Upgrade

[Rugger187]

I am new to posting so bear with me. I hope my pics come out okay and in the order I want them to.
Like many of you, my dash was in need of some help. My bulbs were burned out, my gauges could not be seen at night, and frankly I was sick of looking at it the way it was. I decided to take it all apart and finish replacing the gauges. I had already wired in, a few months prior, a tranny temp gauge and decided to do the rest.
The job I would label as very easy. It required some #2 Philips, a 1/4" socket, and I believed it was a 6mm socket.
This does require one to take out the gauge assembly. I am not going to cover that. It is pretty easy to figure out.
The first Pic shows how I had originally mounted the trans temp gauge. I had taken out the dash, dremeled out the back, used a die grinder to slightly enlarge the hole in the black metal bezel, attached the gauge to the bezel, cut out the clear plastic in front of the trans gauge, and put it all back together.
I used yellow wire for my sender, black for ground, red for Ign power.
I found a nice ground block on the brake pedal assembly which I used for all my grounds. I crimped all the connectors and used electrical tape.
The second pic was just for my reference but shows the holes for the lights behind the gauges.
3rd pic shows the gauge cluster with all the gauges removed. Now it starts to get interesting.
4th pic shows the gauge cluster out with all the gauges removed. It requires unclipping the stock wire harness in the back and also unclipping the speedo cable. Pretty easy straightforward stuff.
5th pic shows the stock printed circuit. Looks daunting but it isn't.

 

[Rugger187]

Pic 6 shows the dash with everything out. I took this time to take out and replace the speedo cable.
Pic 7 shows the power wires. I found an appropriate ign hot and that was not going to be used once I cut up my stock printed circuit. I used a blade connector to get all 6 wires together and left it like that for a bit.
Pic 8 shows the printed circuit with some of my notes. What you have to do is follow each of the circuits and figure where they go. This will allow you to retain your stock wire connector at the back of the dash and also allow you to retain the stock wires leading to the various sending units.
I was able to trace all the grounds, the power for the lights, the sending units, and the power for the gauges.
pic 9 shows what I cut out of the way and what was left. I wish I had been able to cut all of that side out but that was part of the ground for the dash lights.
pic 10 shows where I will be cutting everything out.

 

[Rugger187]

Pic 11 shows the back of the cluster cut out. DO NOT CUT the ground for the lights. At this point I also cleaned up the circuits for the lights in the dash. I used steel wool to clean the connectors both on the lights and the circuits. I also replaced all the lights with blue LED's
Pic 12 shows the front with everything cut out.

13- the gauges I will be using. I put blue LED's in all of them as well
14 shows the trans temp gauge I originally installed months ago.
15 shows the trans gauge out and how much I had to ope nth hole up. Basically I had to take the lip off and that was about it.

 

[Rugger187]

if you look through the holes in the black bezel you can see the notes I took for my stock wire connector. I cannot stress how imperative it is that you take your time and figure out where every wire goes.
pic 16 shows the gauges all installed into the bezel.
17 shows the clear plastic cover and where I had to cut it off.
so... this is where my notes get confusing. At this point I had a bunch of red, black, and yellow wires coming out of the dash. I brought everything over, and slid all the wires out the hole in the gauge cluster pod and started wiring everything. I had clipped the sending wires I needed from the stock wire harness and hooked up my sending units. I had also clipped a power source from the wire harness and hooked them up. The grounds I hooked up. I bundled the wire together, zip tied it all to make it nice, slid the bezel back into place with all speedo and fuel gauge.
Sorry for lack of pics, as I was cold and trying to get everything done before the wife called me to dinner.
the last 2 pics show the final product. The gauges may not look like they are the right angle but they are.
The blue LED's turned out awesome and is a lot easier on my eyes at night.
I just have a few more lights to replace. The one behind the wiper switch, behind the AC controls, and the tach on the bottom of the dash.
ANd if anyone noticed the hole cut in the dash to go over the headlight switch.... wasn't me. PO takes full blame.

 

[Rugger187]

just FYI: everything works exactly as it should except the stock sending unit for the oil pressure makes my auto meter gauge read exactly double. No big deal as long as you know that. And someday I will pull the stock unit and replace it with the autometer sender. I just don't want to crawl into the engine compartment right now. It is -11 outside and the TPI under the hood does not leave a lot of room between it and the firewall. So I will let it be until it warms up.

 

[6872xtc]

Looks good! Do the bezels meet up fairly well? (where the factory one meets the Autometer gauge) Did you do something there to seal it and keep it from possibly squeaking?

 

[Rugger187]

When I first did the trans temp gauge, I trimmed the bezel that the gauge was pressed up against. When I did all the other gauges, I found that i did not need to trim anything else. I made sure that the clear plastic part was trimmed enough to not get in the way, and I used long enough screws to actually have a holding effect. It is all nice and snug and I have put about 10k miles on it since doing this and have not had any squeaking yet. But this vehicle is a lowered 2wd and never sees off road. I was going to do the same thing to my 4wd and then we will see if it squeaks.
Thanks for liking it. I really enjoy driving at night now.

 

[LaRue91]

What size bulb did you use?

 

[-stew-]

Subbed.

 

[Rugger187]

I was ordering parts from Summit and ordered the LED equivalent of 194's and 168's. I actually used Autometers LED bulbs. Part number 3286 and summit part number ATM-3286. I ordered 8 of them and in the dash used 6. I also need to replace the bulb in a tach under the dash and the bulb behind the A/C controls.

 

[Rugger187]

Sorry, one correction: I used 7 of them in the new gauges and in the dash.

 

[LaRue91]

It looks really good man! I'm gonna have to swap my dash lights out in the jimmy.

 

[rebelgregory]

Subbed. Nice diy and install. Officially added to my 'to-do' list.

 

[Brian_D]

wicked job!

 

[Blazer addict]

Looks nice, I did similar to my 78' back in 96' and I liked every thing about it except they fogged up in the winter and I couldn't read them. Any one ever have that problem?

 

[Rugger187]

I figured I'd wait to reply until I drove it more in the winter. After driving through Utah and Colorado for the last several months through the snow, I have not had any problems with them fogging. You must have had an air leak under the dash somewhere?

 

[diesel4me]

Every GM truck I've had ,has had the dash cluster fog up in certain weather conditions,usually damp rainy days with temps between 32 -50 degrees--same type of days carb icing was also an issue..

In winter snow melting off your boots turns to water and ends up in the gauges too,until the heater dries out the air in the cab enough to get rid of the humidity...its also why the windows frost up on the inside too--wet carpeting or floor mat has the water in it that migrates up onto the windows..

 

[Rugger187]

Makes sense about the wet carpet. I have been in and out of snow and between -15 to 60 degrees over the last few months and haven't had a problem. But then again, with this being my work vehicle, I don't get much snow and water on my boots.
And it is much drier out here than in Mass....

 

[shady]

will the LED dash bulbs dim any or are they always bright

 

[Rugger187]

They dim a little if you hook them up to your dimmer. I'll try to take a pic tonight of them at full bright and at full dim. We'll see if it shows up on camera.