Installing Gauges

[TLBREWER]

Oh, lastly, anything special about painting the plastic gauge pillar?

What color interior do you have? If it's red, I had a good match with Duplicolor (I think) interior or plastic Burgundy. Don't recall the part number, but you get it at Auto Zone. If it is dark gray (Ford calls it medium opal), I just painted one for my wife's '91 and got a good match with Colorbond dark gray #42-0756 from LMC truck. That gray is hard to match. I've gone thru 5 different shades to get the right one. Blue or tan can't help ya. I'm waiting on a can of Colorbond saddle, which is backorder, to use on my daughter's truck. hopefully that will be a good match as well. Whatever you use, make sure the plastic is clean. Only use a light strength paint thinner or alcohol to clean it. Stronger cleaners like wax and grease remover are not user freindly with the plastic. I learned that the hard way. Hope this helps

Tom

 

[bikepilot]

The interior is tan, but thanks for the info

 

[tuckerd1]

I also received the same gauges Friday. Will wait for the Turbo install before I install mine. Too much other work going on now.

 

[ramon f350]

Hey Josh when you find out what color matches your tan interior let me know as that will be the next project that I will be doing on my truck

Ramon

 

[reklund]

I made a harness for my power/ground/illumination that ran just those 3 wires up into the pillar. I tapped power off of the back of the fuse panel, grounded to the body under the dash, and took illumination off of the headlight switch. The wires terminated in the piller with connectors, which allowed me to daisy-chain the gauges (I just have 2- no automatic, so no trans temp) together and wire them up. The boost reference line was tricky to get into the pillar without kinking it. I ended up taping the plastic line out straight on a piece of pipe and heating it with a heatgun until it stayed straight, so I could run it up the pillar without damaging it.

You can purchase interior paint directly from Ford in an aerosol can that will match your interior perfectly. Get a good parts guy at the parts counter, because the #'s are hard to find. I have a can of tan paint somewhere, but haven't painted my pillar pod yet...

Ryan

 

[bikepilot]

Where/how did you mount the controll modules for the gauges? My pyro and boost both have pretty large plastic controll boxes associated with the gauges. I was thinking of using double sided tape to secure then to the underside of the lower edge of the dash, just below and to the left of the column. Any better ideas?

 

[dbarilow]

I would do it like freight train its your best bet grease wont always pickup all of the shavings

 

[bikepilot]

I've now got all the sensors/probes installed (droped the cross over pipe for the pyro probe, much easier than I expected). I have routed the wires though firewall (drilled the clutch mc hole cover plate thing).

I still need to install the gauges themselves, the pillar mount, tap into ignition and ilumination power for the gauges and hide the controll modules somewhere under the dash.

well, I'm going to go outside and mess around with it a bit more. Thanks for all the info and keep it comming

 

[Joe Mc]

(I just have 2- no automatic, so no trans temp)

You can have a temp gauge on a manual, I had them on my Peterbilt and I plan to install them on this truck.

 

[bikepilot]

I've even heard of folks monitoring rear end temp to get an early warning of a failing bearing etc (not that I'm that serious/ocd)

Oh, for an update:

I have now set up the wiring for the gauges (power for the illumination, power for the gauges themselves and grounds all the way around) and soldered on all the terminals etc. I still need to tidy up everthing and mount the pillar.

It seems weird to me that the aftermarket pillar mounts on top of the original pillar. Just a few inches more plastic and it would be a complete replacement, which imo would be much more desirable. For that matter, does any one make a complete replacement 3-pod pillar?

 

[TLBREWER]

Hey Josh when you find out what color matches your tan interior let me know as that will be the next project that I will be doing on my truck

Ramon

Got my can of Colorbond saddle paint that was backordered from LMC the other day. Have to touch up some door panels.Will post results if it's a good match.

Tom

 

[bikepilot]

Hey please do, I have yet to paint my stuff. I decided to install it unpainted for starters, figured I'd scratch it all up the first time anyway (and I'm not a very patient person or very good with paint).

Anyway, the gauges are installed and working great. I took my time and soldered all connections etc. A quick trip around the block showed 5psi of boost with the peddle to the floor (but only 2500rpm and then only for a short amoun of time) - the pyro got up to 600°F and I didn't drive enough to get the trans warm enough to register (hey, diesel's expensive).

Anyway, I can't wait for my next motorcycle trip to see how it does. After I get some good baseline data I'm going to try playing with the fuel and boost a little provided the egt's aren't way out of line already:Sly

 

[bikepilot]

I went for my first real drive over the weekend with the gauges - towed the motorcycle trailer out to the mountians for some off-road riding.

All gauges worked great, now I need to think about what they are telling me and if I can improve matters without spending much cash.

Trans temp was great, pulling up some fairly steep hills it peaked at 180°F. Normal op temp was 160-170°F.

Boost was about as expected - saw a max of 6psi (but never really had the motor over 2500rpm). At 65-70mph I'd get 2-3psi on flat ground.

EGT's seemed a little high - driving really easy on flat ground I saw 600°F, speed up a little (say 65mph) and they would be 800°F - any hill at all and they were over 900°F. The bigger hills had them peaking around 1050-1100°F. Everything all stock at the moment.

I have not yet gotten the ip dynamically timed as I haven't found a local place that will do it (most said they just line up the static marks then bump it up a tad from there without using any timing device, one offered to do it for $350, but didn't seem to know much about what they were talking about). I am very slightly advanced right now from the static mark - it sounds about right but my ear isn't exactly a precision timing device.

 

[Freight_Train]

Pretty much sounds dead on teh money except the Boost.You really don't want to go over 1100 Degrees EGT sustained.You can do quick spurts up to 1250 but don't hang out there but for a few seconds(15-20 max and that to me is PUSHING IT).The boost,you can turn up to around 10-11 PSI max.

 

[bikepilot]

Sounds good, thanks. I intend to turn up the boost and fuel now that I have gauges to watch

I'm pretty comfortable with adjusting the waste gate, but do you happen to have a pic or description of what screw I turn to adjust fuel on the ip? (I'll try a search too).

thanks