356 Style Gauges

They appear to  be the Brazilian 356 reproductions ..they have a history of being poor quality and if you rest the trip odometer while in motion it breaks.  The conversion to USD is $741.00. You can get the better quality VDO reproduction gauges with the GPS speedo for around the same cost. Vintage Motorcars in California ( Not AZ) or Special Edition in Indiana.

A GPS speedo would be a great step up from inaccurate cable driven (due to variety of tires and wheels used).  You can replace the 914 plastic lenses with earlier glass ones for not much $.

https://www.pelicanparts.com/B...ult_gauge_repair.htm

I think you are talking about these:

https://www.vdo-gauges.com/ins...ries/356-gauges.html

100mm all of them (914 has different sizes)

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but the only thing I ask of people when considering our new VDO gauges is to buy them from me (Beck), buy them from Greg @VSpyder or buy them from Henry @Intermeccanica Henry .  Henry and I spent a lot of time and money developing these things and they got back doored to EMPI and a bunch of others who have no skin in the game, and who are not supporters of our little industry...  that is all.  :-)

Oh yeah, and you  aren't limited too GPS, you can run it off a speed sensor (aftermarket VW or stock Subaru) as well as hall effect, but GPS is nice where that's legals it is ACCURATE!

Yes, I second the motion Carey.  And, they are so much better than what we had before.  I am aware as my car was being built back then when you guys had to fund VDO essentially to do the R&D to get them going in MPH and KPH.  Thanks to both of you for doing this.

@Alan Merklin posted:

They appear to  be the Brazilian 356 reproductions ..they have a history of being poor quality and if you rest the trip odometer while in motion it breaks.  The conversion to USD is $741.00. You can get the better quality VDO reproduction gauges with the GPS speedo for around the same cost. Vintage Motorcars in California ( Not AZ) or Special Edition in Indiana.

Actually, I think those are the Chinese versions, unless VDO Brazil changed them at some point.
My Spyder was built in 96 and ig has Brazilian VDOs and the Speedo has a step in it like the tach and combo gauges do. And a Made in Brazil stamp on the back.
The Chinese speedo I bought doesn’t have the step like the one pictured.

Any glass shop can cut replacement round gauge lenses using your old plastic one for a template.  Pelican used to have them for the 914 gauges.  Or you can find some junk pre-74 914 gauges and use the glass from them.

I bought my gauges from Beck and I am very happy with them. The gps speedometer is great!

@Drumagination posted:

I bought my gauges from Beck and I am very happy with them. The gps speedometer is great!

8000rpm

Lights, Wipers on the left and Foglamps in the center of the dash, am I right?

Nice cocomats

Headlights and foglight to the left.  Wipers to the right.

@nesta posted:

8000rpm

Lights, Wipers on the left and Foglamps in the center of the dash, am I right?

Nice cocomats

@Lane Anderson posted:

Headlights and foglight to the left.  Wipers to the right.

Actually it’s: Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, Stuck in the middle with you.

Left to right...emergency flasher, headlights, wipers. I come from an aviation background where switches tell you their function. I just couldn’t help myself.

Super cool little details.

Dru, is that switch housing 3D printed?  Very cool.

Yes and thanks!

Greetings,

This is going to really sound like a off ball question but.....

I have the same gauges as shown in the photo above.  There are multiple warning lights on one gauge and I think two on another.  The blue one is for high beam.  A red turns on when I engage the ignition on two gauges - I assume this is oil pressure and ?  I don't know why they are on separate gauges?   What are the other lights for?  They are not labeled or ever come on.

Marshall

Follow-up.  My gauges are Brazilian.

Marshall

Marshall again,

On my RPM gauge, I have the easy to understand left/right turn indicator.  But to either side are red warning lights.  On my oil temp/fuel gauge, there are 4 lights.  The blue I understand and the left most appears to be the oil pressure light.  What are the other two for?

Marshall

@Marshall

On most of the cars I've looked at and asked about, the only light used in the center of the multi-gauge (what we call the fuel/temp gauge) is the blue hi-beam.

One of the manufacturers (old VS?) once connected a switch on the emergency brake handle to one of those lights in the multi-gauge so that it would light when the handle was up so you'd know the e-brake was on.  Don't know how wide spread that was, but it makes a lot of sense.  

On the tach, at the bottom beside the directional arrows, one light is alternator (goes out when charging properly) and the other is oil pressure (goes out when pressure is OK).

I took advantage of one of those unused lights in my multi-gauge to show when my gas heater is on, mostly because I was paranoid back then that something awful was gonna happen and it would blow up.  3 years of experience now tells me that nothing's gonna happen but it'a still cool to see the light cycle on and off.  those particular lights are pretty big and bright - you can't miss them when they light up and they can either be driven by a ground or by a +12 signal - I think there are two of each.

@Marshall posted:

Greetings,

This is going to really sound like a off ball question but.....

I have the same gauges as shown in the photo above.  There are multiple warning lights on one gauge and I think two on another.  The blue one is for high beam.  A red turns on when I engage the ignition on two gauges - I assume this is oil pressure and ?  I don't know why they are on separate gauges?   What are the other lights for?  They are not labeled or ever come on.

Marshall

Marshall, it sounds like you have the same gauges I do which, I believe are Brazillian replicas of 356C gauges.  If you have the same config, but with larger flat lenses on the colored lights vs the little bullets, I believe those are later Chinese gauges .

On my gauges, L-R, is Oil Pressure, (parking brake, not used)  High beam, Alternator in the combo gauge.

Parking lights (the green illuminated one), turn indicator, and another red light that I don't know what is in the tachometer.  

Other gauge sets I've seen only have the alternator and oil pressure in the combo gauge, and the lights and high beams are in the tach along with the turn indicator.

IIRC, when you turn on your ignition, both the oil pressure and alternator light should illuminate (good time to check they're working) As soon as the engine turns over, your alternator light should go out. Depending on the health of your engine, your oil pressure light will either go out immediately, or flicker off within a second. (Sadly, mine is in the second category)

Somewhere in the 356 Registry's tech pages are some good pictures with explanations, but I've got to run. About halfway down the page in the site are reproductions of the owners manual pages explaining dash layout, but they're kind of hard to read.

https://derwhites356literature...ittleKnownFacts.html

hope this helps.

Just so we're clear, Marshall, all these responses are good and true examples of how your indicators might be wired. The only way to know for sure is to know—i.e. by tracing and testing. Alas, such is the nature of the Clown Car.

@edsnova posted:

Just so we're clear, Marshall, all these responses are good and true examples of how your indicators might be wired. The only way to know for sure is to know—i.e. by tracing and testing. Alas, such is the nature of the Clown Car.

Thanks, Ed. I was going to mention that and spaced it out as I was getting ready to head out the door.

Even real Porsche's, I've found no concrete answer. I think in the mid-50's-1960, Porsche was buying off the shelf VDO products, rather than having bespoke parts made. Hence 6 lights between the combo and tach. (Excluding turn indicators) and I don't remember an application that used more than 4 (5 with parking brake) I suspect that the extra one might have been an oil level in dry sump (547) cars, but I've never seen a Carrera or 550/RSK owner's manual to verify.