@Quadmod posted:Thanks all, it was a fun project and has me thinking about other things we might build. (Working on a design for a small LED battery powered cabin light that could attach to the rear view mirror and still look like a period accessory).
@ALB the head temp gauge has a custom length sender cable and was adjusted to suit that. I thought about measuring the engine bay air temp, but right now it’s just ambient temp under the car… might change that placement. Honestly the second gauge was more about balancing the visual aesthetic and I thought air temp would be more interesting than a clock
Really cool project.
I know you've already got the gauges you've got - but if I may make a suggestion... the most important gauge you can have, more than the ridiculous fuel gauge, more than oil temperature and head temperature (both of which are really important), more even than a tachometer, is the misunderstood and forgotten oil pressure gauge.
It was a curious casualty of "cost reduction engineering" by the Sainted German Engineers (who may have not been very proud of what they had wrought for an oiling system) before cost reduction engineering was even a thing. Regardless, the gauge is often overlooked by VW enthusiasts as well. "Herr Doktor didn't think oil in the bearings was important", the thinking goes, "why should I?".
Indeed why should you?
Well, when you over-rev the engine, you may (or may not) immediately break something. My money is on "not" the first time you do it. Likewise oil temperature and even head temperature - play with fire long enough though, and you're going to get burnt. The first time, however? Maybe/ maybe not.
No oil pressure is a "shut off the engine before you even pull over" event in any internal combustion engine. "There will be blood" (or at least a lot of galling) with no oil pressure. If you lose oil pressure and ignore it, you deserve what you get - which will likely be "a basket of deplorables" or cool paperweights, depending on your perspective (is the glass half full? or half empty?).
Every other high performance car in the history of the universe has featured their oil pressure gauge prominently. Once Herr Doktor kicked clear of his VW (and Nazi) economy-car background, the oil pressure gauge made it back where it belonged - front and center on the 5-gauge cluster of the 911. It should be noted that this was about the time Herr Doktor's minions decided to give the oiling system more than 15 minutes of thought, and knocked it out of the park.
I'm not advocating for the forgotten oil pressure gauge... OK, maybe I am. Aw heck, let's be honest - I'm shilling for the oil pressure gauge like my family was being held hostage by the oil pressure gauge cabal, and the only way I can save them from a terrible fate is by selling oil pressure gauges. I'm an oil pressure gauge zealot, living in the cornfields, wearing goat-skins and eating grasshoppers, a one-note-Johnny mumbling "the oil pressure... the oil-pressure" like Colonel Walter E. Kurtz.
May I suggest an oil pressure gauge in that spot?