Gauges....Which ones do we really need?

[Grim Reaper]

I can't find the picture but I saw a REALLY nice gage install on the first gen 4Runner.

You are talking about duplicating existing gages in the cluster. What this guy did is swapped out all the exiting gages for a quality after market gage.

The way the cluster is made it is just a matter of fabricating the backing plate to replace the face of the existing gages. VDO sells a nice kit that has Speedo, Tach, Oil pressure, water temp, fuel level, Volt. Couple surface mount lights for High beam turn signals and Check engine and you are set. The extra gages for tranny temp, oil temp were installed in a stripped out tilt a whirl gage pod on the top of the dash like you are talking about.

Ahhhh Found some. The one I was looking for is a little cleaner than the first one.
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=589510&highlight=dash+pictures
There is two more links at the top of that post.
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=455011&highlight=switches

 

[Guinness44]

oops missread the year of your truck. It works well on the 98, not on the 94.
. Another not traditional way, to get some temps (OK, you got to stop and get outside. We carry an infrared temp gun.... lots of good diagnostics to be done with that, temperature wise.

 

[Spikepretorius]

Vacuum gauge(to monitor air filter flow resistance)

I use a vacuum gauge on gasoline motors to monitor fuel economy

 

[madizell]

Vacuum varies constantly and is one of those values that you have to study in trend to know anything of use. I would not bother.

 

[ntsqd]

I don't really think gauges are all that great of an idea. They're wonderful for diagnosing a problem, but excepting the voltmeter a light will alert you to a problem far faster than any gauge will. VDO also sells variously calibrated switches (temperature or pressure) for turning lights on or off.

Some factory analog ammeters can be converted to read voltage. I have zero use for an ammeter mounted in a vehicle.

Late model diesel trucks come with a flow depression gauge fitted to the air filter can. I know my friend Rod's DuraMax did and I've seen them on PSD's too. They're usually one of the casualties of someone mistakenly fitting a K&N filter. Finding a take-off and fitting it to your air filter can would indicate when the filter is starting to get plugged.

 

[Scenic WonderRunner]

ntsqd........


Please help me understand why gauges are not a good idea.


Let me give you just one example of why I think I need them.

My stock Toyota water temp. gauge is just a "dummy/idiot gauge"......that is, it just has a H high~C cold range. If the red arm starts to swing toward the "H"......I have No Idea how hot my engine water temp is getting. All I know is that it's getting.....well....um......"H"......!

But if I have a Normal gauge that actually "Reads" the temp. by the numbers, then I will know Exactly what "Number" my water temp. is at. Same for oil pressure.....tranny temp....etc.


I would rather........."Know".........!:beer:

By the way..........

Now that I have my new engine, my Oil Pressure is at the 3/4 mark! But I have No Idea what that is, according to my stock Toyota gauges!


(sorry if I made way too many dots....I think I need an SWR dot Gauge!....hehe)



.

 

[madizell]

Finding a take-off and fitting it to your air filter can would indicate when the filter is starting to get plugged.

So would looking at the filter during periodic maintenance.

 

[HenryJ]

Late model diesel trucks come with a flow depression gauge fitted to the air filter can. I know my friend Rod's DuraMax did and I've seen them on PSD's too. They're usually one of the casualties of someone mistakenly fitting a K&N filter. Finding a take-off and fitting it to your air filter can would indicate when the filter is starting to get plugged.

Late model GM trucks and utilities still use them. I installed one on my truck.

This is an old picture. The IAT sensor has been moved to this position, a pre-cleaner installed and the indicator moved down stream to the stock IAT sensor location.

 

[blueeyeddevil]

Does anyone from San Diego know of a Shop, or a Dude, that can help fabricate a gauge pod kind of like this and install/hook up the gauges?

I'm interested in a 4 or 5 slot pod.

Some built in rocker light switch's might be cool too!



Thanks

.

Yeah, I know a guy that does that kind of stuff. But, he lives in the Greater PHX area.Goes buy the name of the Blueeyeddevil on several forums. Send him a PM.

 

[Antichrist]

So would looking at the filter during periodic maintenance.

The ones I was thinking of are dash mounted and have been in use in large trucks for decades. For your average driver they aren't needed. But for someone operating in extreme dusty conditions they can be useful. It would be way down the list though.
I didn't mean a dial type gauge. They are more of a flowmeter.
http://www.technilube.com/pics/wix/wix_remote_mount.jpg

 

[Antichrist]

I don't really think gauges are all that great of an idea. They're wonderful for diagnosing a problem, but excepting the voltmeter a light will alert you to a problem far faster than any gauge will.

No. A gauge, if used properly, will alert you to an impending problem. I light will alert you to when a problem has already reached a dangerous stage.
A gauge says, "Things are getting out of the norm, you may want to think about changing what you're doing before it gets out of hand."
A light says, "Holy crap! You better shut down now!"
For lights only you'd want two senders, one to light a yellow for warning, one with a another setting for a red light for danger.

 

[Terracoma]

(sorry if I made way too many dots....I think I need an SWR dot Gauge!....hehe)

Hey, as long as ExPo doesn't start charging extra for additional punctuation, I say 'carry-on, sir!'

:jump:

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I use Autometer gauges on my track car. All are full sweep, some are mechanical and some are electronic. The Boost gauge is mechanical, because they're cheaper and it's easy to route a vacuum tube into the car. I also use one of the narrowband O2 sensor gauges, but I am actually feeding it with a 0-1V signal from my wideband meter so that the gauge displays a wideband signal.

That being said, some people say narrowband O2 is useless, but I actually did a lot of tuning using it before I got the wideband. The engine *should* be operating in the narrowband range 90+% of the time you're using it anyway.

For fuel pressure, I used an electronic gauge because it's not the best idea to have a fuel line coming into the cabin. The same can be said for oil pressure.

 

[ntsqd]

No. A gauge, if used properly, will alert you to an impending problem. I light will alert you to when a problem has already reached a dangerous stage.
A gauge says, "Things are getting out of the norm, you may want to think about changing what you're doing before it gets out of hand."
A light says, "Holy crap! You better shut down now!"
For lights only you'd want two senders, one to light a yellow for warning, one with a another setting for a red light for danger.

No. A light with the correctly chosen sender value, will call your otherwise non-existent attention to the problem. A gauge can not do that, all it can do is indicate that there may be a problem. I don't care how often you think you scan the gauges, problems always happen between those scans. If you are involved in demanding driving you very likely won't see the gauge until too late either. Most gauges I put under the hood where they are more useful for diagnosing the problem. The exception is a volt meter. That I'm aware of there is no good warning light method for this other than the OE charge indicator light, which really only tells you one thing.

AFAIC any aftermarket gauge under a couple hundred dollars isn't going to show you a real number consistently. If they did, wouldn't they publish accuracy values? Industrial gauges do this, visit McMaster's page. All of their gauges have this info in the catalog. In the past I was totally unsuccessful in finding this information for automotive intended aftermarket gauges.
If you're lucky one of these gauges will repeat reasonably well. Short of annually calibrating the gauges the most that you can hope for is to spot trends. You can only really do this over long periods of time. The even not so average driver is not very likely to immediately spot a rapid change if the driving is demanding or exactly the converse. I'm not abusing people, I'm being a realist.

The advantage of the air filter depression gauge isn't to replace proper preparation of the vehicle before leaving. It is to allow inspection while out in the field without disturbing the air filter or opening up the system to grit egress.

 

[DBS311]

I don't necessarily agree with the above statement. To not recommend using a gauge because the "majority" of people might not look at them is a little far fetched. That and the fact that most factory gauges are the "if you see the gauge hit the H, it's already too late." So many people out there from professional to amateur racers and enthusiasts have used aftermarket gauges with much success, myself included. While it may be true that SOME sub $200 gauges won't give repeatable readings, I think they are much better than the factory "guess what your temp is". For example, I had a vehicle an aftermarket water temp gauge and while driving through the mountains in the dead of summer, I could watch the temps climb when the vehicle was under load and slowly come down when cruising on the descents. The factory gauge remained dead still the entire time. Personally, I'd rather have a little more information being passed to me even if it is 10-15 degrees off.

I like having water temp, oil pressure and tranny temp (for autos) in the cab, and fuel pressure under the hood. My dual battery kit monitors volts, so I don't need to worry about that.