Technical New gauges/ Poor quality

Stupid warner sent me a replacement speedometer for one that the speedo went off the clock when you got to 63 mph then the odo stopped also. The replacement speedo worked for a bit and the odo stopped at 1500 miles. We took this one out and sent to an instrument specialist , it was just plain worn out due to inferior junk parts being used. Mutter mutter , reinstalled with no Odo , speedo is still going . I like the Odo as its a badge of honour as the a car being driven . So now oil changes are done by dates not miles.
If I ever bought Stewart warner now it wont be a new one , thats for sure. Why throw money away on a new Stupid Warner gauge when you know it will fail.

 

I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy right about now!

 

I bought all new Stewart Warner gauges for my '39..the odometer stopped at 200 miles. Their once outstanding reputation is bound to be a thing of the past.

 

It's not just "where" the gages and other parts or products are being made. The design of these pieces today are meant to maximize profit, not quality and longevity.

- EM

 

SPEEDHUT!
100% lifetime guarantee
made in the USA (Utah)
top notch customer support (from my experience)
their design or YOURS.
long story, but worth posting.......I had bought a TPI set of gauges for my '57. By the time I actually got around to installing them years later, I could never get the electronic speedometer to work. TPI by then was no longer. Not wanting to replace the entire set, but wanting something to match, I went to Speedhut.com and designed my own. Could have matched almost perfectly, but I elected to make some changes I liked for the new GPS speedo, and figured I'd change the tach at a later date to match. The smaller tpi gages would blend just fine.
The new GPS Speedhut speedometer looked great and was a snap to install. worked perfectly. Due to my mistake, the nightime lighting was a problem not matching the rest of the gauges. Had I checked it out when designing, I could have looked at a night time lighting view on their website design page. I didn't. I called customer support, not really expecting them to be able to accommodate the change I wanted, but he said they could, but would have to basically redo the entire unit. I replied "that sounds expensive" he said no, not really, if you cover the shipping both ways, we'll do the change for about 10 bucks! Awesome!! I mailed him back their speedometer( insured usps), and my old one so he could actually see the lighting I was trying to match, with a note to call me upon receipt. They never called, so I called them a week later. They never received the package. The post office gave me the gps coordinates of where the package was delivered, and it was about 100 feet from their location in an industrial/retail business park. The driver noted he left the package on the sidewalk at 10am because they were not open. Speedhut told me, no way, they are always open at that time. Post office obviously left it at the wrong business at that industrial park, but would not honor the claim. even appealed it, and turned down again. I kept getting notices from the post office saying they were still looking. Speedhut looked several times through their location to make sure they were not overlooking the package. I finally ordered and paid for a new speedometer. It came in and it was exactly as I had hoped for. No glaring difference in the night time color.
The rest of the story.........about a month later, Speedhut calls and says "guess what was delivered this morning?!!" Yep, my package the post office swore up and down was undeniably delived 2 months prior. The Speedhut guy asked what I wanted to do with the package (remember, my old speedometer as a lighting sample, and their new one for the change). He said, you certainly don't need two of our speedometers do you? He offered to give me a full refund!! I told him to trash my old speedo, and instead of issuing me a refund, just make me a matching tachometer.
As I said, excellent customer service!!
BTW, I have 32000 miles on their gages with no issues at all. Love the GPS no hasstle setup on the speedometer. Additional gps features are odometer, trip odometer, altimeter (love it in the mountains, 1/4 mile timer (time and mph), 60 foot mark timer, and other features. You can make tire size and gear ratio changes all day long with no affect to the speedo.
www.speedhut.com
Also, learned from my experience, insuring a package doesn't mean squat unless you request a signature.

 

I went autometer and so far they’re bang on. Had them in my Camaro as well and never had an issue. Growing up around drag racing they were always the dominant brand from what I saw so have stuck with them. For the tach I had this early sun tach rebuilt and again she’s bang on. Being a small business owner I say it over and over, support local, buy made in your country and you get what you pay for.



Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

Autometer made in Sycamore, Illinois, USA.

Phil

 

Faria

 

I bought all my SW stuff off of eBay. Had to buy a few different sets of two or three gauges to get what I wanted, bought one set of 5 or 6. I picked out the best of what I needed, and resold the rest, making my set basically free. All of mine are NOS or barely used originals, it took about a year to find all of them in that condition. I probably made the most off of a 160 mph speedometer that was new in the box, got it for $10, sold it for well over $100!

The earlier, USA made stuff is still out there. You just have to be patient and buy it when you see it.

 

The question I always ask, "don't the Owner's/CEO's of companies use the chit their companies manufacture"?
STEWART WARNER chit could use some "give a chit" adjustment, IMHO. And this has been going on for many years now!

 

Speedhut Gauges for the Win ! https://www.speedhut.com/

Made in the USA and anyway look you can dream up, they are awesome.

 

There's a Speedhut GPS speedo and a Speedhut tach in my '58, both have custom art work to match the SW Greenline gauges I already had. The upcharge for custom graphics was about $30.

 

Blacksheep they look really good. Equus makes a good gauge, had them in my chevelle. I'd say they are china though. I think the Autometer makes the best looking classic gauges. Had Autometer in all my race cars and never had a failure.

 

So you only buy gauges made in Canada?

Looking up Stewart Warner on the internet, it looks like they've been bought and sold a few times over the last decades, which often bodes ill for long term quality.
They can sell a lot of inferior product at higher profit for a few years, making more money, and not caring about what happens after that.

 

I bought a set of Speedhut gauges 10 or 12 years ago because I liked the idea of "designing" my own graphics. I was a little put off when they arrived by their mostly plastic, lightweight construction. As I recall, they didn't have the usual brackets to hold them in the panel. They slipped in from the back and the bezels screwed on to hold them in place. That wouldn't have been a problem except that the threads (very fine) were also plastic and the bezels would frequently pop off resulting in the gauges doing a rear summersault into the dash. My memory is fuzzy so I don't know if I glued the bezels on with a few dabs of silicone caulk or just thought about doing it.
They looked okay as per the plan and expectation but I sold the car shortly after the gauge install and didn't have them long enough to give an opinion on any reliability. YRMD

 

I think in most cases the new regime buys a name that had good standing for many years, like S-W, and then they milk it until it goes belly up.
BITD Zenith had a company motto- The Quality Goes In Before The Name Goes On. Quality and customer satisfaction no longer matter. Now it’s all about cutting corners, reducing labor costs, pleasing the shareholders and making sure the big shots are going to get their golden parachute when the bottom drops out.

 

About 8 or 10 years ago I bought an Autometer speedometer to replace the 50 yr old Studebaker pickup dash gauge that was making noises.
At 50,000 miles the Autometer speedo stopped counting and gave up the ghost.
From here on, I will keep my eyes open for good used old time Stewart Warner gauges that seem to go forever.

WHY BE ORDINARY ?

 

I usually buy old Stewart Warner gauges and when they don't function correctly I take em to my local speedo shop and get em dialed in.

 

Nowadays we are just buying a name not a product. I get sick and tired of spending good money on new stuff and having to reengineer and fabricate parts to make it work right.

Sent from my SM-J337P using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Vintage gauges happen to be a passion of mine. My wife would argue it's more of an obsession. Nothing looks better and is more true to history than using the correct gauges from that era. It always strikes me as odd that some people strive to find period correct parts for their entire build and are willing to spend thousands of dollars.....until it comes to their dash and gauges. To me, nothing looks cooler than a set of vintage 2 5/8" Stewart Warner gauges from the 1930's - 1950's. I will share some photos from my collection in this post. Nothing ruins a great build more than installing modern gauges, or gauges that don't fit the theme of a build.

The Stewart Warner gauges from the 1930's through the 1970's are of incredibly high quality. I have many from this time period and with the exception of the gauges that needed a new capillary tube, they all work great. There are still some guys out there that replace/repair/recharge capillary tubes, too.

My question is, why are you guys not using old gauges?

They can be found at swap meets, Ebay, Instagram, the HAMB Classifieds, estate sales, and collectors. Also, HAMBer @e1956v does an incredible job rebuilding vintage speedometers. He rebuilt a killer speedo for me and to this day it works great. He disassembled the entire gauge, calibrated it for accurate speed and set the odometer to the millage I requested. All of this for a great price.

Below are some examples from my collection as well as some gauges from other HAMBers. These are Stewart Warner gauges that were produced from the 1930's thru the early 1950's. They are larger at 2 5/8", curved glass, crescent needle, front mounts. Although they are old, they work GREAT! The quality is truly unmatched. They are heavy and of solid construction.

I highly recommend you check out this thread:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/early-stewart-warner-gauge-thread.1019310/



Here are a few of my vintage S.W. 2 5/8" Motor Minders (Work great!)


Here is my Stewart Warner GAS gauge. It is pretty rare, but they can be found.




Here is my N.O.S. Stewart Warner 2 5/8" Oil Pressure gauge.(late 1930's thru early 1950's) It's incredible. I am 100% confident this gauge will work flawlessly for the next 100 years.



If the above style of gauges are not for you, Stewart Warner has an early line of Wings gauges. HAMBer @fleetside66 (Greg) has some very fine examples from that line.







Here is one of my Stewart Warner rear mount temp gauges. I had a new line and capillary tube installed as after 90 years of use the gas in the capillary tube was in need of a recharge. As you can see it turned out great. The quality and aesthetics is incredible.


photo from Pat Pryor, he also has replacement bezels and glass if you need them.



Here is another vintage Stewart Warner 2 5/8" temp gauge of mine. I had a new rear line and capillary tube installed. This gauge will work flawlessly for at least another 100 years and I'm not exaggerating.



My point is, old gauges are great and most still work just fine. They are fun to collect and are true to your build!

 

Speed-on awesome collection and you my friend are a Hoarder . I completely agree why use the new gauges as the quality went down years ago. I will also say a lot of the other gauges just don’t look traditional or correct for the car or truck as @Speed-On said. Many of the auto manufacturers made beautiful gauges and ash panels. A good example would be the 1940 ford gauge panel. If you restore the face an use early 1966-77 bronco gauges an bolt right in the back of the 40 gauge you have a great looking gauge panel and has more modern gauges senders...

 

I think it's because this site was taken over by 1-800 "assemblers". The guys who only use old stuff like this site was originally about, now don't come here or don't bother posting anymore.

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I fully agree with Soeed-on. When I drove down to Hershey this year (7 hr drive) one of my goals was to pick up vintage Gage's which I did. Unfortunately, I didn't find a tach that met my needs. I want my build to look as vintage as possible, and IMHO a dash plays an important part in that role. My haul from Hershey included this American Bosch master switch which looks the part.

 

SW has sucked for years, hell it was the crap brand on napa counters for years now also.. Autometer is the way to go, sure you may not think its as "traditional" looking as SW but honestly its a gauge that works, accurate, and wont fall apart. I expected better from Hamb folks than to be buying sweat shop gauges... tisk tisk...