The gauge cluster in my 40 pickup was about worn out so I started looking for options to replace it. None of these excited me and prices was running from around $600 for a complete set up to around $1800 to have my stock unit rebuilt and converted to 12volt. Now that may be an option for some but I decided to do something myself. With the advise from a friend I hit the pick a part yards and came up with a speedometer that would fit my cluster with out too much work. The best thing to do is take your measurements and see what will fit. I needed a speedometer head that had a 180° sweep with the needle located at the bottom of the gauge. Here is what I came up with. Some of you may reconize it as a Mopar speedo. I found them in 100 and 120 mph units. By holding the shaft from the rear you can easily remove the needle with a twisting action. I painted the needle with Testors model paint. The face was held to the head with two small rivets. I drilled those out and removed the face from the speedo head. Trim the excess from the sides of the face plate. I trimmed it with a old pair of upholstery sissors to match the stock speedo face plate. I had to bend the top over just above the lettering. I covered a short piece of wood with auto carpet to protect the face paint and put it in my vise to bend the top over to a 90° from the face. The sides were trimed so it would just fit through the opening in the cluster case. Take you time and protect the painted surface from scratches. The stock 40 speedo back housing was used to mount the new speedo head. You have to take a little time and make sure the new face is fitted so it centers in the case from the front. It's all in the mounting and you can space the mount out if you need to so the needle clears the case or glass. Once you have it fit and you are satisfied, set it aside and work on the other gauges. As for the basic four gauges, Fuel Level, Oil Pressure, Water Temperature and Amp/Volt, it was a little harder to find a donor cluster that had all four that would fit. I found that most gauges were made of the same rear style and pole spacing. The four I came up with were from a Ford Pickup but used an Amp gauge instead of a volt gauge. I prefer the volt gauges and bought a cheap after market one and used the inner parts to do the conversion. You can use the face from the pickup amp gauge or find a volt gauge that some what matches the other three. This is the speedometer that came out of the late model Ford pickup cluster. As you can see it don't fit real well and it looks too new or stylish for me. As you can see most of the after market gauges have a contact sheeting to wire all the gauges to their system. I took my time and traced each connection to determine witch was the sender side and the power side and then marked them for later referance. You will also need to save the voltage regulater to use in your system. They convert from 12 volts to 5.1 volts. The connections are the same here as a 9 volt battery. Radio Shack sells the 9v connectors that you can cut in half to use for the electrical hoop-up. As you can see they are not that much differant. I cut mounting plates out of ABS plastic for mounting the gauge and also keep the gauge from shorting to any metal parts. I made up a pattern with several holes drilled into it so I could figure out the mounting placement of each gauge. Every gauge will mout a little differant. I like to slot the holes a little so the gauge can be moved around for centering. You want the gauge to be able to move, not the mounting plate. Take your time here and protect the gauge from any ruff handling. Do not tighten the gauge posts down too tight as they may turn in the housing and the inner wires will come loose. When you are satisfied with the mounting, you will usually have to space the gauge out a little so the needle will clear the face plate and work freely. At this point I like to put everything together and see if all looks and works as it should. The 40 Ford clusters mount the face plate with four bend over tabs. If they were broke off I drill a small hole and mount them with a very small sheetmetal screw with a flat head.
For back lighting I have found that the 5mm LED bulbs work great. Be sure to buy the LED bulbs that have the resister already in the power lead. Drill a hole to match their size and silicone them in place. The speedometer has arrows for turn signals and a high beam light. Led bulbs here work well here also. The first couple clusters I built I used them also around the edges in the proper places to light each gauge. You can use any color you want but I usually use white. They look good but almost seem to have a spotlight effect on each gauge. On this cluster I tried the LED strips with the 3M tape on the back for mounting. I believe the ones I bought were 30 lights but can be cut to any length needed. Looks much better. If they seem too bright for you, you can wire them through a headlight switch that has the dimming feature. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=527407 I like to wire my systems before they are installed. Much easier than crawling under the dash. Each wire will have a plug in connector so the whole unit can be removed if needed at a later date. Here is the finished cluster from front view. Much better than what I started with. For sending units I just go down to my local auto parts store and buy the oil and water senders for the car that the gauges came out of. As for the fuel sender I use one of the new universal senders that match the ohms of the donor gauge as well. In this case it was a Ford/Chrysler: Full 70-73 ohms / Empty 0-2 ohms. Before: After: Lighted: Here is the one in my other 40 pickup: And a few others that I have built: This system works well for 1940 Standard car and pickups and thru 1946 pickups. The basic principal will work for other car clusters as well. You can paint the face plates any color you want and also have pin striped to match original if you want. Here is the finished product installed in my 40 truck project. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=527407
Mel, it looks very nice. I'll look back on this to hopefully motivate me to do something similar to my 47 Chev. Larry
Actually the movements from the "new" Ford gauges will fit in the original gauge cases with no modifications. Did that to my '41 ford gauges years ago and working fine.
I knew that but could not find the replacement faces that fit the stock gauges that would match the swing of the needles. And the amp gauge became a volt gauge by my choice.
Fordcragar , did a 47 a few years ago, used a Pontiac Gran Prix with a large round speedo and clock. Fit quite nice. Canuck
Thanks for posting this, it's great. What era/make are the gauges and speedometer from, it will make it easier when trying to cruise through the recylcing yard?
Man, that looks good - really a great job. Every time I go to the pick-and-pull, I can never find a good speedo with a 180 degree sweep. I'll keep an eye out for the older Mopars now .... One question is where the light strip is adhered to - I'm thinking the back side perimeter of the front 40 face plate? I've been toying with doing this for a long time. I've been using old-styled 2" gauges and setting them in place in the back of the unit but you see a bit of the chrome ring in the upper right and left. The speedo was the big thing but I've almost decided just to use a portable GPS on the shield and leave the original non-op speedo in place. Now I'll check out the Ford truck gauges as well - it will certainly narrow my search - thank you for this. The other problem was the black faces of the gauges vs the lighter frown face of the stock 40 cluster - how would they look together, would it still look "older". You've now shown that as well as they can really mix well together and still look "period". I'm going to save this thread, that's for sure .... thanks again .....
Thanks for the post. I've been following your truck build and was hoping you would show how you did your cluster. I put a '40 dash with a Standard cluster in my '37 Ford Pickup. I have been wanting to do something like this but wasn't sure how to go about it. I don't know Mopars real well, would you mind telling what year and body style the speedometer can be found in? I appreciate all the good info!
I forgot to mention that most of the after market speedometers have the provisions for turn signals and high beam lighting. I used the stock 40 high beam jewel that is above the cluster in the dash. So I used the speedometer high beam as a indicator light for the electric fan. Now I know when my fan is running. You probably will have to drill holes in the back plate to align the bulbs to the face plate. I used the white LED lights here as well.
What I meant was that the new movement can be placed into the old cases with the original faces. If you tear an old gauge apart and a new one apart they are identical in size,shape. Actually when I did mine I had to mark them to keep them straight. Just pop the gauge into the original case, install the original face, crimp and done.
Just wondering since you work on these allot Do you know were to get some repro original style 40 gauge faces? They had them here locally but .. the last time I asked they told me they cant get them anymore. Thanks
Very nice work ! With the high prices these companies get for their gauges , you just have to think outside the box many times to get the gauges you need that really works . Great Tech that I will always remember and might have to use one day ! Retro Jim
This was the reason for using what I did. My gauge faces could not be read any more and all the major supplies quit selling them. I do have a set of the Drake street rod decals for stock faces but wasn't what I was looking for. Black with white letters and too 90's style. And again, I did not want to run an AMP gauge. So stock faces was not an option for me. I did look into having new stock decals made but one off was too expensive.
mj40's...I've been fighting with myself for ages now, as just what to do with my '40 cluster. It's time for an update of some kind, and I also want to incorporate a volt meter, yet retaining something like the original flavor of the cluster. Jeez, what an obvious and relatively simple solution. Beautiful finished-product...TECH WEEK WINNER material! DD
The Jalopy Journal
