The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Gauge Cluster Fastener source

Recently I read of a person that made an extended type of nut used to simplify access to attach the gauges to the dash. I cant remember the source or the name but the nut was longer than the standard small one, and easier to reach. Anyone have the name of this person selling these? My memory is good but sometimes its just plain short.

Well, well, well, my memory worked after-all.

Here it is:

http://drjsrestorationrx.com/parts-for-sale/

Those are called "coupling nuts". They're used to join pieces of all thread rod together. There are dozens of them available on Ebay in all sorts of lengths, threads, and materials, for a lot less cost than the ones in your link. It would be a very simple machining process to press one of those nuts into a knurled piece of brass round stock to make thumbscrews and eliminate the need for a wrench at all. Using a plastic thumbscrew with the same thread stud as the nut, and some red LocTite would be even simpler.
Jerry

Good point, Jerry. I'm actually more enthused that my memory worked..if I recall correctly/

My Ace hardware store has them in stock.

I substituted brass knurled nuts to replace the original nuts and just tighten them by hand. Much easier then the originals. A suggestion I got from this forum. My apologies to the original poster of this idea as I couldn’t remember his name nor locate the original thread. You can pick them at you local hardware, big box store on online.

tom moore They have those at the farm store,ours are in a yellow box an assortment. Also the downhole pump store has em,but probably not that small. Those brass ones look good too ! our hardware store is growing out here in the wilderness with stuff like that .

FWIW if you have access to a lathe and a bit of time, I turned my own just to give longer nuts (about 1-1/4" long), easier to find and easier to get a grip in there. #10-32 thread I believe. Center drilled and tapped some O1 knurled the ends.