Need some help with gauges...

[Ibanezplayer272]

Hey im lookin into gettin some triple pillar gauges, I already found the pod I want on ebay but before I buy it or bid on it I would like to know how exactly you install one of the gauges, like I know ill have to hid the wires and stuff but im wondering where the wires hook up to, to get the info they need to work, haha, im guessing its under the hood somewhere, thanks for anyone that helps me out here!

[lowflyn]

It all depends on what kind of gauges you are wanting to go with. You will need to put sensors on whatever you're wanting to regulate...and 3 extra gauges on a stock 3.8 is alot, you'll have to be measuring tire pressure or something to use them all lol

[NJStang86]

I smell rice...

[SpectorV]

the dual pod looks much better 3 is to much and there are not 3 gauges that are worth having lol

i highly recommend getting an oil psi and temp gauge.

Gauge pod Install for pre 01 cars.
only difference for others is the location and wire color of the rear defroster


Items needed
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Good pair of crimpers

basic socket set

screw driver (phillips i belive)

Torx bits (array of sizes only one is needed just cant remember its size)

connectors so you can splice two wires together, tube things slide one end of a wire in and crimp it down and for the other end slide the other wire in and crimp it down this creates a solid connection

I bolt connections / the ends that have a hole in it so it will slide over a stud, you just crimp them to the end of the wire

electrical tape

pair of special plyers to pull the coating off a wire, it slides the coating away from the wire, a regular pocket knife can be used but you must be VERY careful when removing the wire coating, you need to cut around the wire very softly you will feel the wire when the knife makes contact with it, do this in a complete circle then about a quarter of an inch away in another circle, then make a slit from one cut to the other and you can peal away the coating. You can alwasy use line line spice connectors that you slide over the wire and stick the wire you are connecting to it in the other end and crimp it down, they tend to not hold up very well in my expereince.

Sodering connections is alwasy good if you can so have a sodering iron around if you have access to one.

A drill with bits

A power tester, looks like a screw driver you can see if a wire is hot, has power, or not with this wire, this will help in finding the correct wire you are needing or testing wires for power

Wire, make sure you have black wire for grounds, red wire for power wires, and some other wire for sensor wires.

labels for the wires, you can do this however but make SURE you label which wire is for what just in case you get behind or forget which wire goes where or should go where.

Mounting the Pillar Pod
---------------------------------------------

The full pods are not actually full, they mount over the stock pod, so they are just as much hassel as the little ones, they simply look a little cleaner, the full pods also mount the gauges to low, so your arm will be in the way, with the little ones you can mount them where ever and how ever you want, high or low its totaly up to you.

To mount the pod you need to take the stock A pillar out once you have the mount location marked with tape or some sort of marking. You can pull it off by pulling the top out it will pop right out pretty easy pull towards the middle of the car at an angle not straight back.

Once the pillar is out lay the pod over the pillar where you marked the location, since you will see the inside part make sure you mount the pod so that the inside part looks really smooth and correctly aligned. So go out of your way to align the inside pod with the inside part of the pillar, so know which side of the pillar is on the inside, the one next to the windshield will not be seen very often.

Hold the pod over the pillar and see how itlines up, make sure the bottom of the pod (the end that will face downward) meets flush with the pillar. You need to drill holes to mount the pod with the instructions will tell you what size the hole needs to be, I recommend the edge of a table to do the drilling and a second set of hands really helps. Make sure to drill the holes far enough in so there is no risk of the edge getting torn, just about a quarter inch in from each edge in the corner or maybe between a quartrer inch and a half inch, before you drill the holes in the pod sit it on the a pillar and make sure there are no issues behind the a pillar where the holes will be going though, make sure every thing is clear and ok to drill.

Drill the holes in the pod in all 4 corners then de-burr the back side of the holes with a larger drill bit, just use your hand and twist it to remove the plastic from the under side. Now sit the pod over the A pillar and get a second set of hands to hold the pod over the pillar exactly where it need to be so its flush on the inside part and there is no gap on the bottom peice. Use a nail and hammer or center punch to mark where the holes need to be drilled at, give it one final look over and make sure the punch marks are not to close to the edge of the pillar along with checking for where the holes will be going for obstructions from the underside of the pillar.

After all this drill the holes and sit the pod back on and inspect fitment, DO NOT put the push pins in yet.... now you need to drill holes so the gauge wires can come though, the pod meets so close to the pillar one hole does not work best, drill two holes one under each opening for a gauge, in the middle towards the back of the opening, you can use a drill bit to drill holes to make a one or two inch hole but a one inch will do fine.

Once the holes are drilled and you can run wires though the holes for the gauges you can mount the pod to the A pillar with the supplied push pins, they wont sit perfectly flush so you may opt to use pop rivets.

Installing the gauges: Power wire for the gauges
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Its best to leave the gauges hanging out side the pod while you are wiring them so you can trace the connections to ensure they are correct, and it allow for slack in the wires so you can remove the guages if you need to, definatly make sure you have enough slack to remove the gauges from the pod easily.

Start off by running a power wire though the A pillar and out the end, hang enough of it out so that you can have enough working room to attatch the power wire to the back of the gauge run the wire about half way down the pillar and cut it off, run another power wire out the other gauge pod the same way. You will have two power wires half way down the pillar now. Use a connector to splice these two wires together, wrap these two wires together and put them in one end of the connector and crimp it down. Take a power wire and run it from the other end of the connector (crimp it down) and run the wire down the A pillar between the crack where the a pillar meets the dash (you can pull back the seal to gain access to run the wire so it wont be seen. Run the wire down the crack to the under side of the dash, run it around the plastic peices so its out of sight.

Now to hook it up to a souce of power. You will need to remove your head light knob, using a nail bent about an end from its tip at a 45 degree angle works best to pop it off. Now remove the two bolts on the underside of the gauge pod, in front of the clear plastic peice covering the gauges facing upward. They are torx bit bolts and may have a socket 6 sided shaped out side.

After they are removed you can pull off the gauge cover it will pop out with out much trouble. This opens up the gauges and you can see the defroster and what not. Now you need to remove the gaue pod. There are 4 black torx bit bolts at each corner of the gauge pod, remove those, then tilt the steering wheel down and slide the gauge pod out from by pulling the bottom out first, then unplugging it gently. Sit it aside, this opens up the area alot for ease of working. Now remove the rear defroster, just pull the two little metal peices on each side in ward and it will slide right out, wiggle the wires and what not to pull it out enough to gain access to the wires behind it.

Run the one power wire you connected to the two power wires that will power the gauges from the under side of the dash up and to the back of the rear defroster, use a coat hanger or something to guide from the top hole where the gauges where down and then tie the wires on to it and pull it back though. Take time to run your wires cleanly due to the final step will be running wire loop around the wires and make SURE they are out of the way of moving items like the brake petal or clutch.

Once you have the power wire behind the rear defroster, there is a hole behind it so just keep messing with it until you can get it working, you will need to use the power tester to locate the correct wire to draw power from. You will need a good ground location to place the wire from the tester, if you can not find one use a peice of wire and extend the wire from the tester to the negative battery terminal you can just wrap exposed wire around the clip. Now test every wire on the back of the defroster with the key out of the ignition and all should be cold (not light the tester up) Now put the key in the ignition and turn the key to the on position, you dont have to crank the car. Now test every wire, make sure the head lights are NOT on also. You should have one wire that is hot. Now turn the head lights on and another wire should be hot and finally one will be hot when you turn the defroster on If I remember correctly. Triple check the connections to find the wire thats ONLY hot when the key is turned to the on position or the car is cranked. This wire is the one that you need to splice into so splice into this wire and make sure to tape up the conenction good with electrical tape (how to go about this is listed in the items needed section)

Now turn the key on and test the wires that are comming out of the A pillar pod both should be hot wires when the key is on. If so then you are good to go, if not check all the connections and splices.

Finish up by connecting I bolt connectors to the end of the wires comming out of the A pillar pod and connect the wires to back of the gauges on the correct position, and secure the wire with a bolt from the gauge kit. That takes care of the power wire be sure to have access wire in the system better to have a little to much than not enough! Finish up with labeling this wire so you have no doubt about what it does and where it goes.

Installing the gauges: Power wire for the lights on the gauges
---------------------------------------------------------------

Next you need to wire the power wire for the gauge lights, same operation as the power wire for the gauges, run a wire from each gauge to the middle of the A pillar pod and splice those two wires together in one end of a connector, then run one wire from the other end of the connector down to the under side of the dash and up just like the power wire for the gauges. Run this wire exactly as the other wire is ranOnce you have it up and behind the rear defroster. Fine the wire thats only how when the parking lights/head lights are on. Triple check and then splice the wire to this location. Finish up with checking the wires on the end next to the gauges and make sure they are hot when the head lights are on, if they are not check your connections and where you spliced the wire. Now label this wire and connect these wires to the gauges. Some gauges have wires already there for the light, a power wire and a ground wire, so just use a connector to continue these wires if they are not long enough.

Installing the gauges: Ground wires for the gauges
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The ground wires are just like all the others minus there are more of them. You will have 2 ground wires from each gauge. I fond it best to connect the two ground wires from each gauge into one ground wire so you will have one ground wire from each gauge going down to the middle of the A pillar. Now you can connect both of those ground wires into one ground wire as you did with the power wires above. If possible use a larger ground wire, but the same size will work fine, or so it has on all the installs I have done.

Once you run the ground wires to the under side of the dash, you can run the ground wires to the rear defroster ground wire, black wire, or you can run the wire to the negative post on the battery terminal. If you choose to run it to the battery terminal wait and run it with the sender wires. If you choose to run it on the defroster make sure to check all of the wires when the head lights are on and the car is on and the rear defroster is on and make sure the wire you choose does not become hot at any time, it should be a slightly larger black or brown wire, I belive its black and in a corner. Finish up by attatching the ground wires to the gauges and labeling the wires so you know how they are ran and what they do.

Installing the gauges: Sender wires
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Run a wire from each gauge, the sender position, attatch each wire to the back of each gauge at the correct place and run them down the door jam to the under side of the dash. Pop your hood and look at the back of the dash on the driver side and you will see a rubber plug, pull it back and out and you will be able to run the wires though the hole, it can be stubborn... and you could drill a hole though it if you wanted.... just be careful not to hit any other wires in there.

Now that you have the sender wires (maybe the ground wire also, just run it over to the battery's negative battery terminal.) use some wire loop to protect the wires as you run them.

Temp gauge: If you look at the front of the motor in front of the upper intake you will see a bolt facing up, and it will be connected to some black tubing, the coolant system tubing, remove this bolt only when the car is completely cool so no pressure is in the system. Use the correct adapter for the sender and use some teflon tape that they sell at lowes in the pumping section to wrap around the threads of the adapter and the sender to ensure a good seal. Bolt them down in place putting the adapter in first then the sender in on top of it. You can determin the cleanest way to run the wire to the sender thats up to you just keep it in side wire loom.

Oil temp gauge: If you look by the oil filter you will see a bolt/plug at the top of it facing towards the driver side. Remove this bolt (a little oil will come out) .... it will take a trip to a hardware store first also. You need to get an adapter that will fit into this hold you opended up 1/2 inch A&M fitting or 1/2 flare fitting followed by a elbow to bend the oil sender away from the front sway bar. Use teflon tape to ensure good seals. Its a pain to find the adapters you need here... so take the bolt with you to lowes and make sure all peices you get fit and also take the sender do not assume anything will work.... Make sure the final install of the sender is away from the sway bar so it wont get hit by it when driving, it does move so keep that in mind.

Finishing up
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Use wire loop under the dash or anywhere you can to clean up the wires and use zip ties to hold the wire out of harms way of moving peices. Make sure all connections and splices have been covered with tape to ensure their connection.

Double check the gauges to see if they light up, and come on with the key on and finally check the senders for leaks.

[SpectorV]

and yes i just sit here and typed ALL of that just for you i didnt copy and paste....

[timpryor]

you don't really need them you can spend the money on someting much more useful

[Ibanezplayer272]

Quote: Originally Posted by NJStang86 I smell rice...

Dude, I am in no way rice alright, im the exact opposite, im sorry that right now im limited on money as that of I can only get a V6, but I dont really care if my car is the fastest one out there or not, I just want my own car to my own preference, and all you had to say was was something like Spector V, I thank Spector V VERY VERY VERY much for all his help, since he said he didnt copy and paste, he actually typed all of that! holy crap, thanks alot dude, very VERY much appreciated. But yea, I mean im in no way a big guy that knows everything about cars, I come here to learn, so I can do it all myself and feel proud that if theirs something thats aftermarket on my car, its because I did it all myself, so ill feel proud of it, even if it is just 2 pillar gauges, its only to my own personal reference, its not cause im a ricer and think im hot shit. But anyway you can think whatever you want, I just want my V6 to be my own, personalized toy that I enjoy driving with what it has in it. Thanks again Spector V for like the 10 page manual on how to do it man. and im not trying to hate on anyone or anything, cause I just come here to learn and then do myself and feel proud and then when someone in the future asks the same question, I can tell them how to do it, and im not tryin to piss anyone off, its just kinda lame that you think that im a ricer just cause I want pillar gauges... wtf? Anyway, thanks for help Spector V and anyone else that gives/gave any!

Take Care

[NJStang86]

I said I smelled rice because there is no reason for you to have 3 guages...especially since you dont have mods that would require the information that these guages would provide.

Sorry if I sounded harsh...goodluck with the mod, and Spector, take a breath lol

[mohrnormal]

thats why he has the big bold red? letters!!

[Ibanezplayer272]

Well Stang86 thats like me sayin I smell rice because you have Bullitt Pedals, and Sequential Tail Lights, you know I mean, its not necessary, you can use STOCK pedals just fine, but its just cause you wanted them because you like your own options in your car. Anyway, thanks for the good luck, it dosent seem THAT hard, I just gotta take my time and dont rush anything.

[WhiteStang99]

OK ppl, chill out.

I see both points, Ibanez, it isn't necessary for ur car to have 3 extra gauges... Seriously.

And, I can also see why you want to make it ur own. We all know how many stangs there are out there, we all want to be original and do what we like. It seems you understand that having more gauges than a fighter jet doesn't make you faster than one. (yes yes, i've seen that video)

[SpectorV]

i think 3 gauges is to much for looks not function, it looks odd having 3 dont knwo why just looks like to much going on, 2 looks much better but thats the only opinion of the gauges i have, you can get and do what ever, autometer are the only brand i would run, I have the lunar series and they work great, the cobal also work good. taking your time with the install is the key.

[01mineralgrey6]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ibanezplayer272 Well Stang86 thats like me sayin I smell rice because you have Bullitt Pedals, and Sequential Tail Lights

j/k