gauge face size

jvandyke

jvandyke

True Classic
Anyone know off hand the diameter of the main gauge faces?
I'm embarking on creating white gauge faces for fun. Did it for my Opel GT and they turned out great. For those I took 'em apart, set face down on a scanner and had a really good starting point.
Of course, if anyone has a digital version of custom faces for me to start from so much the better. Thinking black on white, probably get rid of the kmh and all such stuff.
 
Someone used to make them IIRCC it was Greg Silver. Tony has a set installed on Blacktooth. Personally I'd like to know the diameter as well as I'm looking to install chrome trim rings around the speedO and tach.
 
Gauges......

Jeff, I can't help you with dimensions, but if you go to my thread below, I've done exactly what you want to do. Due to my being away so much, I had Pottsy do the new faceplates.

http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/9468/

I'm very pleased with the look. As far as I'm concerned, it was worth every penny.
 
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Thanks, that's the thread that got me interested. I might go a bit farther and make the whole circle for the temp/charge white with the icons in black, same for above the fuel gauge, the gas pump logo. Or, I might just do 1/2 the stuff my wife wants me to do around the house and not do anything.:eek:
My speedo is acting up, which is prompting some action. It is getting noisy with a shakey needle. It's the 85mph version too which I destest. I figured as long as I'm mucking about in there, may as well play with it.
 
White gauges ready to print

I have the file available in CorelDraw for all Xweb members, you can modify it if you wish.
I can modify the speedo to be in miles/hr if you want.

gaugesfiat.jpg
 
trip meter vs. odometer

Making my own faces. From scans from and such. Ordered up a dash cluster set from ebay for the 140 speedo and I'll get all the other bits too.
I notice the trip meter and odometer swap places between the 85 mph version and the 140, eh? I was hoping to swap odometers to maintain accurate mileage. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Hmmmmm Tony's trip and odometer are in the "right place" and not swapped on his 140mph version. Now I'm confused (normal state).
 
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first attempts

Not knowing the right way to do such things, just my way, I use a word processing program and it's draw tools. It works.
No idea if the sizing is right or not so probably wasting my time.
Looks pretty good to me. Don't ask how long it took; way way too long but I enjoy it.
The slight pixilation and fuzziness is a result of the export process, they print crisp and clean. I went through many fonts looking for the best match and even then didn't like the 1 so I customized every occurrence.
whitefacegauges1.jpg

whitefacegauges2.jpg
 
So you're saying I can make it read up to 400mph and a shop will calibrate it so it's accurate to the gauge face (never using 2/3 the gauge) That'd be good for the people who judge a car's potential top speed by how high the speedo gauge goes.
Or, I could install everything, run the car at known speeds and mark the gauge face accordingly, in essence make the gauge accurate by moving the numbers around a bit.
Here's a mock up.

removed the gas can symbol and may put an X 1/9 logo there, maybe Mac's symbol...hmmmm
and "unleaded fuel only' gone, is there any other option anymore?
lots of blank space on the temp/charge idiot light gauge.
I do like the look of the white faces.

Still confused on the orientation of the odometer vs. the trip meter, apparently Bertone moved them around when they took over in '83ish?
I want to use an '87 speedo with my '81, but would like to make the odometer accurate if possible. swapping odometers between too speedos where they are in different places possible?

whitegaugemockup.jpg
 
I'd think marking the gauge face while clocking car is more accurate than bench calibration, the shop can probably get it perfect in reference to the real world but isn't there so many factors on the car that matter? tires and cable slop and, well, whatever. The shop can account for some of that if given the right info I suppose.
time to get back to work on my end.
 
Makes me wonder why mine is so far off then. Reads 75 I'm doing 69, reads 80 I'm doing 72. Running the common Sumitomo 185/60R13 which I thought might decrease the speedo variance but didnt' seem to matter. I'll see how the new gauge behaves I guess.
 
I think I will see how the new-to-me 140mph speedo does, depending on how off it is, do a needle move and/or redraw my speedo face to match.
 
I have a theory about factory speedo calibration...

jvandyke said:
Makes me wonder why mine is so far off then. Reads 75 I'm doing 69, reads 80 I'm doing 72.
Click to expand...

It doesn't just apply to Fiats, either.

No doubt the government has some requirements around speedometer accuracy. Let's say it's something along the lines of "must be accurate to actual speed within +- 5%". Obviously there has to be some tolerance because no two speedos are going to read exactly the same. On top of that, you have tire wear which will affect speedometer accuracy, and I'm sure many other factors I'm not thinking about.

So I think what the manufacturers do is push the +- 5% (or whatever the number is) to one end of the range that is in their favor. Every stock vehicle I have ever driven reads a higher MPH than the vehicle is actually travelling.

OK so why would the manufacturers do this, instead of just shoot for the middle of the range? Here's why. The speedo and the odo are intrinsically linked. If you hold 63mph on a speedometer, and drive for an hour, and the actual vehicle speed is 60mph, then the odo will record 63, not 60. This runs the manufacturers warranty out a few percent faster. This makes big differences to the beancounters, because if you think about it, what they are doing is setting themselves up to be able to legally refuse coverage late in the warranty period. This is exactly the time when you are most likely to need that coverage, and that is precisely why the warranty only goes to 60k or 100k or whatever - because the manufacturer has determined that at some point shortly after the warranty runs out, the MTBF (mean time between failures) takes a nosedive and a warranty becomes a losing proposition to them.

There's my conspiratorial theory for the day. :)

Pete
 
Makes sense, if you think you're getting worse gas mileage though that's not good for them. I think I read in the U.S. a 5% error margin is allowed.
Not sure how that is figured but if 5% error from 80 is 76-84 then I guess that's not unreasonable. I'm going to try to improve mine a bit anyway. On my Opel, which was also way off, I took it apart and and retensioned the spring in the eddy current drive. I managed to improve it across the board that way. On that one, the needle is held against a stop and you could pull the needle and reattach at various preloads, very finicky and dangerous, very delicate little gizmos. I think on that I pulled the stop, noted the needle position and when I put it back on I increased the preload slightly. This was also in the midst of a white face gauge job.
 
I don't how FIAT did it back in the day but all late model European car's speedos read fast. It's my understanding this is because of European regulations that do not allow speedometers to under read so they build in some safety margin. On my 2002 Jetta TDI the speedo reads about 5% fast but the odo is dead on.
 
I also found some references to regulations that don't allow speedos to read slow (don't want you going faster than you think you are, but slower is okay, and that's fine). Odometer seems to be good though I never really checked it closely.
Jeff-sick-of-waiting-for-gauges-in-the-mail
 
done

Look pretty good. Couldn't get the clear face off, got scared so left the other parts I was going to do for now. Photopaper with a matte fixative. Used inkjet, shoulda waited to use the color laser at work but I'm not good at waiting. No real issues except volt meter is not reading now. Much easier to read and I think they look better.
Painted needles flat black.
finishedwhitefaces.jpg

finishedwhitespeedo.jpg

finishedwhitetach.jpg

finishedwhitetempvolt.jpg
 
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