Clock Attack

[mightyart]

Or Changing the Clock into a Tach.
When I first added my gauges I didn’t give much thought to how I was mounting them. I just need to monitor the engine till it ran the way I wanted. So when I mounted the tachometer here I just needed to be able to see it. Lately it had started to rub against the dash pod and it has been bugging me. I have an 81 Westy and had thought about getting a tach from a newer waterboxer but that tach also has the temp gauge which I can’t use, plus I didn’t know if I could get the gas gauge to work right, and I needed that to work right. I have an extra gauge pod I got off Ebay, I bought it for the switches, but it was complete with a clock. I got the idea of trying to put the tachometer guts into the clock. The more I looked at them the more it looked feasible. The Tach I bought from JC Whitney for 25.00 awhile back, and I already had a working clock. So I figured I didn’t have much to lose if I broke the tach, the extra clock or both of them. Of course taking the tach apart I broke the bezel, so it wasn’t going back together without some visible glue. Then when I took the extra clock out of the housing I broke one of the terminals, nether one of them was going to work the way it was supposed to anymore, so I was committed.
I won’t go into the details for putting this particular tachometer in. I basically modified it as much as I could without unhooking any electronic stuff. I used to be a jeweler and this small stuff is fun for me. If you like this tedious kind of stuff you to could stuff a tachometer into where the clock goes. I also made this so I could put it back to stock without a problem. Now I have to figure out a better way to mount the four VDO gauges I have.

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My Art:
http://www.instagram.com/flynn8552/

[pocvw]

Wow!!! Excellent job!! Man, that makes me want to put my tach up on ebay and get a set up like yours. That turned out really good!! I am impressed!! I have never been a big fan of the tachs that you previously had (and that I currently have) - they are so big and bulky. Anyway, I might be asking you more questions about it. Excellent job!!
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Life is a garden - dig it!

1980 VW Westfalia

[pocvw]

Oh, just a thought, but your 4 other gauges might not look too bad if you purchased one of those gauge mounts that go up and down on the arm between the driver door and windshield. But I am sure that you'll figure out a great set-up - just post it for us, k?
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Life is a garden - dig it!

1980 VW Westfalia

[cnskate]

Looks great. That clock can be really annoying too, sounds like Chinese water torture when you're camping in a quite spot.
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"Wherever you go, there you are."

[shenan-agon]

Now that's cool. I always wondered why I needed a big fekking clock in the cluster when a tach would be a lot more useful (especially in a manual Van). I may have to try this...

[mjamgb]

All I can say is WOW.

Diesel van: Most tach suppliers can get you a sensor for the diesel. It is an itty bitty coil that tapes, clamps or glues to your generator or alternator to provide a signal... pretty ingenioius. Any car can use it but for obvious reasons, Diesels need it.

The rest of you guys:
That's great. Especially as stock tachs are getting hard to come by. I put a stock (1985) tach in my "clocked" binnacle. I forgot to write it up but it was pretty easy... I used the '85 mylar, tach and indicator lights and even cut a hole for the digital clock (that turned out to be a waste of time!) in my '84 binnacle. The later model oil pressure circuit was ignored and all the lights went in the right places! I only had to run a new wire from the dizzy to the tach as there wasn't one in the harness. (some ding-dong mechanic "fixed" the extra wire for me recently by cutting a foot out of it, thanks, ape!).

Keep on 'dubbin'

Mike!

[Ericthenorse]

I am just curious as to why you could not use the temp gague on the waterboxer tach??
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'69 bug--rusty as hell
'91 vanagon carrat-slammed,5 speed,4 wheel disks,17x8.5's

[DanJReed]

Hey MA,

Could you just take a later dash (say from an 8 and drop that in? Or are the wires wrong? I'd be cool if you could wire up the water temp gauge to read CHT.

Anyway, hats off to you and your hack.

Me, I am looking for this..

BAD AZZ!!!
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-Dan
(87 Westy Vanagon, 98 Jetta GLS 2.0, 95 Golf Sport)

[mightyart]

Thanks guys! pocvw, good idea on putting them on the piller, my only problem is on of the POs put that black wooden thing in as a radio mount,
and cut a hole that big in the dash (it did make hooking up the radio easier) so I got to cover it. The one thing I will say about the big noisy silly clock was mine kept good time so it wasn't all bad. I have a clock on the stereo so I didn't need two, and I sure don't watch the clock when camping. I could't use the water temp gauge because I have no water to take the temp of, guess I could have hooked to the tank for the sink.
"hey the temp on the water is getting real hot, hmm, ahhh I'm on fire!"

I have seen pictures of a simular setup like your picture Dan, I also had thought of doing something like this, but I'm curious as to how hard it is to fill his brakes up. still looks cool though.
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My Art:
http://www.instagram.com/flynn8552/

[buspor63]

That pic must be from a Subaru guy
I'm not knocking the Subaru conversions, I want to do one. It's just that intimidating.

[mightyart]

Here's a dash from a TDI conversion, way to spendy for me, but looks nice just the same:

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My Art:
http://www.instagram.com/flynn8552/

[mjamgb]

I do recall that I had to take apart the electrical plug and re-route many of the wires but the Bentley assisted there so no huhu. I'll have to write up my notes someday.

Dropping in the whole dash is fine but my 1.9l didn't have the extra sensor for the oil buzzer so no point in trying to use it.

And my donor dash was worse than mine!

mike!

[61 BUS]

I'm planning on running a cylinder head temperature guage, an oil pressure guage, and an oil temperature guage. I'm finishing up a dash pod that I custom built using a plastic under-dash stereo mount that encloses the whole stereo. I got it a my local Pep Boys auto parts store. I trimmed the top side of plastic mount to the contours of my dash, and cut a piece of flat plastic to fit into the front hole area where the stereo normally goes, and then drilled three 2-1/8 inch holes in it. The front panel was glued to the stereo mount using JB weld, and the whole thing was painted using wrinkle finish paint. It gets installed upside down from the way it was intended to be mounted, on top of the dash just over the ash tray. I secured it to the dash with adhesive backed velcro so that I wouldn't need to drill holes in the dash.

The tough part about all this is installing the sending units, as the VDO oil pressure sending unit does not fit into the space where the pressure switch is, and most of the brass fittings and extension tubes available at your local auto parts store have 1/8 inch threads and not the 10mm x 1.00 that is needed. I've been told that they are close, but not exactly the same. I would rather not take the chance on stripping the threads in my block. I solved the problem by finding an adapter fitting made by Autometer. It has a 10mm x 1.00 male end, which screws into the hole where the old temperature switch was, and a 1/8 inch female end, which can be attached to whatever 1/8 inch extension tubes and T-fittings you need. The VDO sending units can then be screwed into the 1/8 inch fittings (which are close to the 10mm x 1.00 threads of the sending units)

[DanJReed]

For oil pressure...

have you seen this?

http://www.42draftdesigns.com/product/42004.htm

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-Dan
(87 Westy Vanagon, 98 Jetta GLS 2.0, 95 Golf Sport)

[mightyart]

That looks good there 61 Bus. I need to hood up my oil presure sender to, have to figure out how to mount the gauge first. i've got the sender with connections for the dummy light and oil pressure gauge, so the hose with the block won't work. Vanagon.com had something on what parts to use to hook it up.
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My Art:
http://www.instagram.com/flynn8552/

[Ericthenorse]

Hey mighty... if you have the dual sending unit from VDO, you might concider using the remote kit above. I have used several of the VDO units, and all of them leaked after a little while.
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'69 bug--rusty as hell
'91 vanagon carrat-slammed,5 speed,4 wheel disks,17x8.5's

[atomatom]

i was just mulling this over. my thought was to rotate the tach guage so you can re-use the clock numbers - of course it should line up. the guage mightyart used is a hair off, but pretty close!
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84 Vanagon Westy, 1.9L, California raised but defected to Canada.