Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and Rustbucket350
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2016
- Messages
- 140
- Reaction score
- 32
- Points
- 28
- Vehicle Year
- 1986
- Make / Model
- Ford
- Transmission
- Manual
This is for everyone like me who is happy with the appearance of the factory dash and yet dissatisfied with the accuracy of the idiot lights. In my case, I no longer have idiot lights after I swapped a 4.0 in my Bronco II but I never liked them to begin with. Also, the Bronco II really doesn't have a place to mount a gauge pod on the dash that would look clean.
Enough bs here we go. Buy a $16 ebay universal triple gauge pod. These are made for newer vehicles with wider a pillars. Mine hit the windshield and went out the door when I lined it up. That's fine we're only buying it for the pods.
Cut the individual pods out and shape the edges to fit. I used a dremel cutoff and a coarse file. Once you fit the pods to the a pillar you can use a soldering iron to melt them to the factory a pillar.
After the pods are melted into the a pillar you should reinforce the joints. You'll probably have filler work to do anyway so I used the quick setting JB weld after sanding with 60 grit to give it some tooth. Mix it up and smear it in the seams.
Now you can sand the JB weld down and the pods will be plenty strong. I still have to do the final finish on mine but the hard part is over. I'd recommend a skim coat of body filler after sanding with 60 grit, sand the body filler with 80 grit, soak it in rattle can high build, and sand it smooth with 400 before painting it with spray paint.
I plan on cutting the back of mine out so I can wire my gauges and have access to the hardware. Maybe someone will have a different idea but this should work pretty well and look good.
Enough bs here we go. Buy a $16 ebay universal triple gauge pod. These are made for newer vehicles with wider a pillars. Mine hit the windshield and went out the door when I lined it up. That's fine we're only buying it for the pods.
Cut the individual pods out and shape the edges to fit. I used a dremel cutoff and a coarse file. Once you fit the pods to the a pillar you can use a soldering iron to melt them to the factory a pillar.
After the pods are melted into the a pillar you should reinforce the joints. You'll probably have filler work to do anyway so I used the quick setting JB weld after sanding with 60 grit to give it some tooth. Mix it up and smear it in the seams.
Now you can sand the JB weld down and the pods will be plenty strong. I still have to do the final finish on mine but the hard part is over. I'd recommend a skim coat of body filler after sanding with 60 grit, sand the body filler with 80 grit, soak it in rattle can high build, and sand it smooth with 400 before painting it with spray paint.
I plan on cutting the back of mine out so I can wire my gauges and have access to the hardware. Maybe someone will have a different idea but this should work pretty well and look good.
