wiring a voltage guage?

[Brian_B]

Hello,

I could not find an electrical forum. Would someone with "the power" move this to wherever it it supposed to be? I am confused Thanks.


I have a set of 3 autometer gauges w/pods I will be installing in my 56 tomorrow night. No...I am not hacking up the dash.

I got these from a guy I knew a long time ago. They worked fine in his ranger. I was going to put them in mine. That didn't happen.

Anyway......He wrote down the installation instructions, but....

The oil pressure gauges is easy. Just hook the capillary tube to where the current oil pressure gauge is (cheap aftermarket one).

The water temp gauge just screws into the intake where the current factory electric gauge is.

Now comes the volt meter. It has the normal wires for the dash lights. Easy enough. I just wire them into the same wires for the other two gauges.

(They already are in place from the cheap oil gauge that is in there now.)

It has 2 heavier wires and I want to confirm where they go before I hook them up.

The written instructions say the hot wire goes to the battery and the other one just goes to ground. Is that correct? I assume I need a fuse in the battery side. If so, what size fuse should I use?

Thanks for moving this and thanks in advance for the advice,

Brian

 

[Bob Ayers]

You are correct about the ground, but you don't want to tie the positive directly to the battery. You need to find "switched" 12V somewhere, and tie it in there. An inline fuse should be used. The current draw will be low, so I would use something like a 1 AMP fuse.

 

[Brian_B]

That makes sense. The gauge should not stay on all the time. I am glad I asked. I never even thought about that.

I have several inline fuse holders, so I will put that in too.


Thanks.

 

[blackhat620]

Brian,

Bob gave you the straight scoop. Here is the instruction sheet i found on "Autometers" website, and it has pictures and wiring diagrams.

www.autometer.com/download_instruction/0318J.pdf

Good luck with your install.

 

[Brian_B]

I feel sort of dumb now. I looked all over their site and could not find the instructions.

Thank you for linking me to them. I am printing them now.

Here are the gauges I will be installing:

 

[blackhat620]

Brian,

Those are sweet looking gauges. Don't feel bad about not seeing the instructions on Autometers website, it took me a while to stumble across them, and "stumble" is the key word here, as there website is not that easy to navigate IMHO.

 

[Brian_B]

I hunted and hunted before I asked. Oh well...now I know.

I really like the wide sweeps on these. They should be easy to see.

These gauges are in "pods" and I won't be hacking into my dash. Dad is making some mounts that will go up under the edge for me.

Here is a side shot:

 

[blackhat620]

Autometer makes very nice gauges IMO. My two favorite gauge manufactures are Autometer and Isspro. Both make excellent gauges, it then just comes down to finding the gauge with the correct look you are going for. Post up some pics after you get them installed.

 

[6L PWR]

I have the AutoMeter Nexus gauges on mine. I like'em alot. They flash red when they're in the warning zone that I program them for.

 

[Brian_B]

They are not wired yet, but they are mounted!

My steering wheel is turned off center.

 

[6L PWR]

They look great Brian!