The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Electronic speedometer gauge opinions needed

Some of you know when changing to the T5, you have a few options regarding the speedometer. You can find one with a mechanical tail section and fiddle with finding the right gears. You can purchase an adapter which will convert electronic impulses to mechanical movement (and from everything I've read this may be a bad plan). You can use one of the electronic speedometers which are tied in with GPS. Or you can adapt one of the units (like SpeedHut makes) which can be set to your particular rear end ratio and tire size easily...a good option but which has the odometer in an electronic screen. There are a few options which use an electronic speedometer and an analog odometer and those can be adapted to the AD speedo case. And when you do this, you will notice 2 things; one---the speeds from 0 to 80 are almost exactly 1/2 of the circle. two---you'll have some extra room at the bottom of the dial (and in a custom made case should you decide to make one).

In line with the last possibility, I've fiddled a bit on one idea for a newish (but more stock looking) speedometer face which would incorporate a 2 inch tach at the lower right and a 2 inch vacuum gauge at the lower left. I've tried to attach it and I think it is ok size-wise. Please take a look and tell me honestly what you think. I've figured out how to extract and use the same exact font which was used in the original gauge and I realize I may need to do some work on those numbers both on the upper and lower sections...

Oh, forgot to mention...when finished this would be turned into a water slide decal which could be easily mounted to a new aluminum face plate and fixed with clear matte acrylic. The same center section could be used with a slot cut for the re-settable trip odometer (and the mechanism would be accessed from under the dash rather than a hole through the speedo and a pin coming out). Other background colors could be used, also. The computer program I have is pretty lenient on that.

Interesting project. I've looked into other options than a stock speedo as well.

Part of the challenge is manipulating the fonts. Also alpha fonts are limited to what can be plucked from the gauge cluster. With some imagination and luck it is possible another gauge could be shoehorned in to the center of the gauge cluster.

Only because you asked.
IMHO it looks like the spacing on the speed numbers is a little off for some of them, and I
think the (bottom) zero in the vacuum section needs to move just a little left. Do you have
a (geometric) compass? That might make the spacing in the speedo section a lot simpler.
Oh, and for the record, I think you've done a great job. Hard tedious work. Well done!

--Chris

Thanks Chris,
What I posted is just a mock-up so I could get some ideas or reactions from people here---the layout being my main concern. I don't have a geometric compass and yes...the spacing is not quite right. It was done 100% by eyeball. What really needs to happen is those numerical fonts need to be "shrunk" sideways to compress the width and make them more narrow, but that is easier to say than do. When time permits I have an open source program that was suggested by another friend, but honestly it is written a little over my head.

Of the two gauges I think the vacuum gauge is more relevant, but I have a 2 inch tach. One early thought was to only use the vacuum gauge and have it sit directly beneath the speedo, but the arc is different (shorter arc which travels opposite to the speedo needle) and it seemed to me like it looked better with the two gauges. But other possibilities do exist.

In addition to these two gauges, I am also going to use a red LED for the high beam indicator and two green LEDs for the right/left/hazard indicators. And there is also room to add a yellow (or orange) LED that would act as an idiot light for the alternator...if an LED will work for that purpose....and I still need to check that. Ideally it would need to be capable of running dim to bright and I don't know about that yet. Part of the LED thing is I'm going to try to come up with a way to make the LEDs replaceable without removing the whole she-bang.

I had a similar idea a few years ago and never finished it.. Need to do the layout of the speedometer face and attach the needle.

Somewhere is a thread about it, but all the info is in the pictures.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ymvcGhwf2G7W2FVXA
Basically trim the case shorter, remove and reinstall trip button on back of circuit board, make a sheet metal clamp bracket, enlarge back of original speedometer housing, make new center plate with window for odometer, new face plate decal, and adapter for needle.

Same can be done with a tachometer, VDO makes a comparable tach to start with.

That looks really nice...especially the center part you've made. This was very similar to my first thought but not using a VDO gauge. I was using a SpeedHut 0 to 80 speedometer which will fit and look ok but it has the liquid crystal odometer and it is about 1.25" x 2 inches as I recall. The key there was to make a new dial face with a rectangular cutout for the lcd display. What I'm trying now is the speedometer and odometer portion of a GM gauge cluster...95 s10 without tach. The odometer sits below the needle and the trip odometer sits above it. The odometer and trip odometer are the analog type.

One advantage to the aftermarket or more universal type electronic speedometer (and tachometer) is they have a calibration procedure, so will work with any axle ratio, tire size, and so on. Does the S10 gauge movement have an easy way to calibrate it for a different vehicle?

Also note the VDO gauge I picked has a reasonably generous sweep angle, not as much as the original, but close.

That is a big advantage...sort of depends on how much one wants an analog odometer, I think. You can use one of the universal speedometer signal interfaces like the one made by Dakota Digital...they're about $85 as I recall and allow almost infinite adjustment. In my case the transmission calibration almost exactly matches the rear end ratio, tire size, etc of my pickup.

Here's the original thread on the conversion I started on 6 years ago and haven't finished...
https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=847088

Pictures can be found here (webshots links don't work)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ymvcGhwf2G7W2FVXA

Can't seem to find the model number right now, but believe it was a VDO "Vision" series, about $50 on ebay at the time. (edit) try VDO 1211012341
The tachometer part number is vdo 1211002485 if you want to make a second speedometer housing into a tachometer the same way.

Out of curiosity I looked around and found where one fellow had modified the resistance & capacitance of the stock unit to allow adjustment for his tires and rear end ratio. This having been done on the S10 speedo unit. It was around bedtime and I didn't make notes or anything but bookmarked his comments to review later.

Here is a mock-up of another speedo/vacuum/tach combination along with blinker indicators and hi-beam at bottom. Please tell me what you think.

https://beta.photobucket.com/u/JonGoodman/p/3e9cd0d8-4071-4947-99a9-7e908c8dbbb7

If that link didn't open (which won't surprise me since Photobox seems to be having problems now), I've attached the image using the forum method.

Looks functional.

If you want it to look more original I believe the lettering is more square, fewer curves in the font.
If necessary draw each number from measurements on the original, you don't have to use someone else's font of you can draw exactly what you want.

Thanks Grigg,
The original lettering and numerals were more square. I copied those from original gauge faces and hoped I'd be able to use them, but the problem was in scaling them to different sizes. I'm still working on that, but so far it hasn't gone all that well. There is a Linux program claiming to do that, but it doesn't seem to be free of bugs. I'm still searching for a font closer to the original, but haven't found one yet. Day by day I'm feeling better about the font not being quite right, though. Functional is important and I've always thought a vacuum gauge is a good thing to have. Some of these doggone image manipulation programs are fine for 30 year old fellows I suppose. This morning I'm working on a couple of other ideas showing the cutouts for odometer, etc. Here is where it is so far:

Latest iteration of the S-10 speedo / tach / vac gauge and signal indicators. I've tried to duplicate the original Stovebolt numerals into TrueType fonts using several programs and either they don't work (the programs) or I don't have the right amount of magic.

That looks nice.

I had a project once duplicating an odd font cast in a part. I took a picture of the part and imported it into AutoCAD as the background of a drawing. Then I more or less traced the letters but drew them new from scratch with straight lines of uniform length, spacing, angles, and arcs. Many letters have similarities with others, R is like a B, E similar to an F and so on. Build your replacement letters to have the same features as each other where applicable.

I’m suggesting starting from the finest detail of the original numbers. If you haven’t found the exact font to reuse, and you want it perfect, then that’s about your only or best option.
With accurately drawn letters in a drafting program you can scale them perfectly as needed.

Thanks Grigg,
I still have alignment work to do, but I'm getting closer. This is the best font I've found that will scale. I'm getting tired of working with the font programs because the fonts I've drawn using a mouse aren't that good. I did try making JPEG files from fonts I had drawn on paper, but those lose detail when you convert them to SVG files (they're only as good as your scanner or digital camera) and some of the font programs only recognize specific SVG files and reject the others.

This font choice aside from the number 1 is pretty close and unless you were comparing the two side by side, I'm not certain you'd spot too many differences. If I use this, I'll re-do the other gauges using the same font for consistency. Then I'll make a dial from 1/8 inch plexiglass and a waterslide decal of the gauge faces using a white backed waterslide decal paper. You probably know you can't print the color white with an inkjet or color laser printer unless you get one of the specialty printers. The part I have not decided yet is whether to paint the back side of the plexiglass silver to make it opaque and then white to bounce light around or to leave it unpainted so the dash lights will illuminate the numerals from behind at night. I could also paint it a light blue or green so as to illuminate the numerals at night in either of those colors. The turn signal indicators and hi-beam dot will be leds set in tubes attached to the plexiglass.

Based on a different vacuum gauge, here is the latest version of the speedo dial.

Progress on this is being made. You can see I've made the aluminum face plate and have mounted the electronic speedometer to it now. The speedometer being the light green plastic. This afternoon I mounted the tachometer and it fit...sort of. The tach being a white nylon body. There's unfortunately only about .001" clearance between the tach flywheel (blue plastic) and the final numeral of the odometer. Obviously I'm going to have to adjust that, but at least it did fit as I planned...with some alteration to the speedometer, that is.

Pardon the blurry image. 3.5 diskettes for memory storage and a 1.3 megapixel camera aren't what they once were. The waterslide decal went on nicely but is less brown than I wanted and the numerals have a bluish cast to them, so I may have to study on that a bit. Anyway, here's an update:

Looks pretty sharp!

Thanks Grigg,
I'm finally beginning to see an end to the project. Wish I didn't have to lose the middle trim piece but there's no room in the inn with everything else going on here. The little vacuum gauge is pretty slick looking and tiny...

More progress. A cardboard core from an old Cheez-It box, 2 ounces of fiberglass resin and a little aluminum and we have the start of a new case.

I have used the gps speedometer in my last several builds and will never use an electric or mechanical one again. For any tire size, gear ratio, or being flown through the air with a freight helicopter, it will give a dead accurate speed reading.

I considered one of those also, Evan because it would have been the easy way out. But as I said at the first of this I wanted one with an analog odometer and the GPS units all use liquid crystal screen displays. Not that this isn't a deviation from original...it certainly is, but if I'm right on my calculations it will be almost infinitely adjustable when I finish. And hopefully I'll be able to preserve the re-settable trip odometer. We'll see how it goes.

Small update on some work done on an electronic speedometer (made by SpeedHut) option. A two-tone decal was needed and when that was made, a chrome trim ring was also needed. I'll post the decal later (although I get the idea very few are interested in this at this point...possibly later they will be). I knew I had seen the trim ring somewhere, but I wasn't sure where until I was recycling some aluminum cans. And then I saw it again. See images below...the can, the bottom of the can, bottom of can first polished with MAAS polish and ring cut carefully off and filed/sanded to size and finally set atop of decal to check fit. The ring I needed for a few cents and apx half hour of time. More to follow on this option soon...

Jon, advertising on Stovebolt? How much is DP paying you?

Ha, ha Martin...I have the standard rich and famous contract with Dr. Pepper. But it prohibits me from telling you what they pay me.

This is looking great. I have been working on custom guages for my grandmother's 84 F150, but your progress puts mine to shame.

On your Grandmothers what? Good way for the new guy to get picked on by posting the F word in his 3rd post! We roll Chevys and GMC pickups around here.

Just a short note to show progress is still being made. Here is what the face plate for the Speedhut programmable speedo unit will look like. The chrome (polished aluminum) ring cut from the bottom of a soda can has been filled with JB Weld to give it more strength and will be cut to show full view to the little odometer/info screen. This face plate has been designed to work with either the programmable or the GPS Speedhut unit and the original speedometer housing with only minimal (3 small holes) alteration. As I've said before I've been trying to keep it as close to original as possible. The original speedometer needle will be used. 1/8 inch holes for turn signal indicator leds and an led for the high beam will be on a line at the bottom and no other gauges will be combined with this face plate. I was tempted to include a yellow dot for alternator/generator idiot light but couldn't make 4 holes look as symmetrical as 3. I am still working on the 3 in 1 gauge and I'm also working on a face plate made of plexiglass to allow the numerals to glow in white at night. That one will require more than the 2 57 style bulbs that illuminate the stock type gauge, but I think should look good given the large numerals.

In my defense, the first thing I did once I got it home was put the drivetrain from a wrecked 2000 silverado into it.

Now it actually starts and runs when I get in.

Another mock-up of how the Speedhut unit will look when completed. The trim ring is now installed and so is the speedo unit. This all fits neatly into the stock speedometer housing.

The Speedhut option is complete and here it is with leds installed (right/left turn and high beam), the needle installed and all neatly built into the stock housing. Now back to the tri-gauge work.

And showing the high beam indicator and a right turn signal...

The most recent view of the 3 in 1 gauge. Lots of work getting everything in here and working correctly, but it did fit. Still building a case for it.

The case is nearly complete on the 3 in 1 gauge. Need a new chrome bezel, inside lighting needs to be set and balanced and a few small touches here & there.

I'm bringing this up to the top because a fellow asked about electronic gauges...the speedometer being one. I ended up using the Speedhut conversion. It is cleaner, works well and despite the lack of a real odometer I think I like the look better...plus it fit very neatly into the stock housing. If anyone needs the jpeg file for the decal, please let me know. You're on your own to make the center trim ring, however.