Minor gauges

[Griff]

A little while ago I refurbished my speedo, tacho, and all five minor gauges. Guy (bless him!!) remarked that he couldn't live with the major and minor gauges being different.
Suffering from OCD, I then recommissioned another set of four gauges in the correct font, that then inevitably lead to me looking at the battery condition gauge (the only one I hadn't recommissioned) every time I got in the car, and gritting my teeth!!

Back tracking a little, the original cars had an ammeter in the dash, but not relishing the thought of 120A running in the back of the dash, and concluding that a voltmeter was both safer and more informative I decided early in my ownership to use one of these instead.
Veglia Borletti never made the battery condition/voltmeter in dual language or with the correct font, so I commissioned one, and finally yesterday I fitted it, having arrived in the post a couple of days earlier.

I also find a time clock very useful in the car, and have had one fitted since first getting the car, originally this was in place of the oil temperature gauge, before I made the necessary changes to incorporate one
but of course this original clock wasn't in the correct font, and despite refurbishing this one with the other minor gauges it also started to grate.
One from a S1 Fulvia is graphically matched to all the other now fitted gauges, so I tracked one down, and when it finally arrives, we will have graphical harmony in the cockpit, quite sad really!!

One final note, Guy also gave me a scrap Dino tachometer, to copy the graphics, an excellent illustration of how helpful people within SEC are to one another, many thanks to him and all of you for the help and advice I've benefitted from.

[Iowstratos]

Hi
All looking great.
Question; Who did you use for the refurbishment of the gauges, as I’ve got a tachometer that’s not working, and also requires conversion from 4 to 6 cylinders.

Ian

[Griff]

Ian,
I used Speedy Cables, (I've used them for years) but these days they aren't cheap, and it seems to take forever.
I might have another contact for your tacho, I'm going away on holiday shortly, but I'll ask once I get back

[Griff]

So the new clock with the font to match the rest of the gauges arrived from Speedy Cables, unfortunately it didn't work, so its gone straight back to them

[Normb666]

This clock stuff has prompted me to pass on some news. Apparently the Italians have installed a clock in the leaning tower of Pisa, so now they've got the time as well as the inclination.

Just thought you should know.... :)

[Griff]

Is that GMT Norm, or is it leaning more towards CET?

[Stratos Fear]

- bloody 'ell Norm ! I think you should slope off into the corner.

[Normb666]

Dunno if it's GMT or CET, but I know they got it second hand. Ahem....

[Griff]

One of those Tik Tok adverts?

[rutthenut]

Hi
All looking great.
Question; Who did you use for the refurbishment of the gauges, as I’ve got a tachometer that’s not working, and also requires conversion from 4 to 6 cylinders.

Ian

Hi Ian - the conversion is something that Chris used to do, many years back.
I've got a couple of spare tachos and pretty sure one of those had been converted for six-cylinder operation, with feed from the 12v V6, which is a pretty solid signal.
The 24v setup has a lower-power signal, I believe, for which I had a different tacho modified.
I don't have any real need for these extra instruments now.
Can't recall if you have 12v or 24v, and whether that old modded tacho would work for your car or not.

[rutthenut]

I too did a bit of a refurb on my minor gauges a while back, mainly because one of them had a chrome ring, and also wanted to check calibration of the temp gauges, mixing-and-matching with some spares I had.

Can't put a clock in my dash as I use the battery cutoff all the time, but have oil temp as well as water temp, oil pressure, etc.

Original post said that Voltmeter (Battery Condtion) multi-lingual panel was printed, so is that something that can be repeated?

Have a similar issue with my oil temp gauge, which only has English (white) text albeit in the correct font. It does now have the innards from a water temp gauge with (very near-enough) the same calibration with C/F white/yellow text, so closer to correct, fwiw
20411204122041320414
Here's a pic of an original dash layout, for reference
20415

[Griff]

John, the answer to you question is yes, see below

[Griff]

and today, I finally got the new clock fitted and working, so now everything matches. Now all I have to do is sort the lighting out to make it uniform and dimmable.

[john]

It's been mentioned on this thread about converting 4 cylinder tachometer to 6 cylinder.
Has anyone experience of using this item:
https://www.brunosteering.com/product/universal-rev-tachometer-rpm-adapter-converter-4-6-8-10-12-
cylinder/

Looks ideal and a decent price.

[NoCorseChris]

Sorry, only just picked up on this thread. Nice work on those gauges chaps, they look superb.

Re the 4 to 6 conversion, yes, as JR mentioned, I used to do them, but that external box John spotted looks a lot easier! My mod involved uncasing the tacho, replacing the old electronics with new, then recalibrating, and as JR also noted, the input circuitry needed tweaking depending on if it was coil or ECU driven.

I think I might have one or two of the PCBs left if anyone wants to DIY, but if I do, they are bare boards and I don’t have the components in stock.

If anyone is desperate, I’ll help if I can, but I’m not ‘offering a service’ as it were.

One note, if you happen to be using an aftermarket ECU, it’ll almost certainly have a built-in tacho conversion feature allowing you to use a stock 4 cylinder tacho.

[rutthenut]

That external box certainly looks a good option for using 4-cylinder tachos.
And could potentially have the settings tweaked to change the readout if there is a desire to 'under-read' the revs for any reason. Noise tests, anyone? ;)

[Griff]

Well, I finally finished the re-lighting of my instruments with LED's courtesy of Pantera Electronics in the USA, and Chris Jarvis (for the bulb holders)
I hate vehicle electrics, its just so much spaghetti to me, took me ages to work out the intermittent lighting failures were because the pea light holders were really brittle, and falling apart.
Having finally twigged, I then had to make some lighting sub loom from various spare parts, your average sparky probably would have done it in minutes, me all morning, so I'm now going to put my feet up.
All I've got to do now is work out how the fibre optic cables work, wire the light source into the cockpit loom, and light the rocker switches.......

Pantera Electronics (in the USA) ledgaugelamp (pantera-electronics.com) (https://www.pantera-electronics.com/ledgaugelight.htm) source of the dimmable LED instrument bulbs

[rutthenut]

Looks really bright and effective. Are they dimmable LEDs?

Have you put a deeper lip on the instrument cowl, ori insert the panel further, to reduce reflections on the screen?

[Griff]

John, no the panel is only recessed the normal amount, but the panel is swaged above the switches to increase the angle of inclination
The LED's came from Pantera Electronics in the USA pantera electronics (pantera-electronics.com) (https://www.pantera-electronics.com/) are available in white and other colours, and are dimmable ledgaugelamp (pantera-electronics.com) (https://www.pantera-electronics.com/ledgaugelight.htm)
I've had an email in the last week, telling me that they are testing a cyan (red version) as well.
They have a number of other electronic parts, that may also be useful

[Stratos Fear]

John - Cyan is blue ?

[Griff]

Peter - just me being thick