Cheap easy DIY pillar gauge pod!

I found this idea while googling gauges and tried it out myself on my 1990 daytona. I'm not quite finished with it yet but here are the instructions and a recap of how I'll be finishing mine up.

Materials
- fiberglass resin and hardner
-2 or 3 2" PVC street elbows (make sure your gauge will fit in the end of whatever size you get, I have 2" gauges, you'll need 1 elbow for each gauge)
- vise grips, rubber finger spring clamps as many as you can get your hands on
-masking tape
-electrical tape
-an old shirt
-a throw away paint brush
-hot glue gun
-dremel

1. remove your pillar trim piece.
2. wrap the pillar in masking tape only on the portion you want your pod to cover (size of your custom pod)
3. wrap the masked portion in electrical tape
(the masking tape makes the hardened pod easier to detach from the pillar trim, the electrical tape provides a barrier to keep the masking tape and trim piece from being exposed to the fiberglass resin you'll use in a few steps from now)
4. take a your pvc street elbow's and cut them at an angle appropriate to display the gauge to the driver
5. hot glue your street elbow to the electrical tape on your trim in the desired position. this may take a few attempts to get it perfect. I used a paint pen and mocked up the elbows in the car, still wound up pulling them off and re-positioning about 5 times.
6. once you have your elbows secured to the trim piece, stretch an old t shirt over the whole unit and wrap the ends with electrical tape. Then pull the remaining slack out on the back of the trim piece with vice grips or rubber fingered spring clamps. Word from the wise, binder clips don't work.....
7. Once you've worked out all the wrinkles you can, mix up some fiberglass resin and use a chipping brush to soak the shirt with resin.
8. Let the resin cure and slowly peel apart your creation.
9. I cut off the excess material with scissors and cleaned up my edges with a dremel. You'll obviously need to cut holes for the gauges, I haven't crossed that bridge yet, I'm thinking hole saw or tracing a circle and using the dremel.
10. To finish mine up I'll be wrapping it in the same fabric I re-did my headliner with so they match. I'll likely be drilling some holes and using the factory push in style plastic interior trim retainers.

That's as far as I"ve made it. Enjoy the pics below and let me know if you need any more pics of how I did mine. It turned out real sharp and cost about 10 bucks in materials. More pics to come when the finished product is installed.

Cheers!

[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03231.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i...MG_03261_1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03281.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03291.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03301.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03331.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03341.jpg[/IMG]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing. Remember to update when you are finished

nice work

So, is that gauge pod basically just a resin soaked T-shirt with PVC rings in it?

Correct. I decided to hit mine with sandpaper and a little bondo before I paint it. Should be ready for finished product photo shoots tomorrow or Wednesday. Fits a hell of a lot better than trying to rig up a universal unit.

That's pretty impressive for the method. Do you plan to fiberglass it into the plastic trim or just anchor it on with screws? That is really awesome though.

Looks great but you may have to cut the corner of your gauges off. I did something similar b/c I didn't like how bulky the aftermarket ones looked. Then I found out why they are bulky lol.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g1...20Shot%201.jpg

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g1...d/IMG_3488.jpg

Nice job and great idea.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by turboshad

Looks great but you may have to cut the corner of your gauges off. I did something similar b/c I didn't like how bulky the aftermarket ones looked. Then I found out why they are bulky lol.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g1...20Shot%201.jpg

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g1...d/IMG_3488.jpg

---

Well thankfully it didn't cost him that much so if he has to do it again to compensate for deeper gauges it won't be expensive.

So.... I decided to bondo the thing and sand it down smooth. It was a lot of work but it turned out fantastic. I didn't have any trouble getting the gauges to fit, but I will have to rig up some kind of retainer bracket for the back as there isn't much room for the threaded studs (I'll post pics of that when I figure it out). My plan is to use the factory push in grey clips with the black 4 finger female clips. Not sure if I'll need to supplement with double sided tape or not but I like the idea of the factory clips. OK enough typing.....

[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03371.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03411.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03421.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03491.jpg[/IMG
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03481.jpg[/IMG]]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03451.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03461.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i.../IMG_03471.jpg[/IMG]

If you do another one, try painting it first to see what kind of texture shows. It looks great as you have it but I was curious as to whether or not it would have a similar pattern to the stock look. Regardless, looks really good.

I thought about trying that. The texture from the fiberglass was very sharp and jagged. I have to make one for my lancers now so I'll have plenty of opportunities to experiment.

For J/G bodies, Jackson had a very neat idea for putting them inset into the cluster just by using PVC pipe:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...pstythc2ou.jpg