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!
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