Got my 914 gauges! I did a little mod to them...
 

Hey guys, well i found a set of 914 gauges (after looking for months) at a decent price ($50 bucks) only thing that did now work was the ODO/trip meter... as i have had this problem before in an Audi 4000 i kinda knew how to fix it ;) so i got that working good. i them matched up the stock speedo to the 914 one to get accuarate MPH readings, what i did was used a drill set at the same RPM to check how fast it was going (83mph) then took the the other speedo (914 one) and did the same... then you have to reposistion the needle to read the same as the stock speedo. On an Audi 4000 you calibrate it the same way, but there are marks on the face that show you the placment of the needle for stock settings.

But this was not the mod..... :D

I was highly doughtfull the 914 gauge would have the same gas guage readings. so the only way to really make it accuarate (cave man style, no electronic bull ****e) was to adapt the stock fuel gauge to the 914 gauge :D!
So i spend all last night (till 2 am in the morning) modifying the stock fuel gauge to fit in the 914 guage. It turned out GREAT! looks seamless. the only way you an tell its not factory is if you look at the back... as i had to make a cover/mounting plate out of plastic to cover the hole and mount the gas gauge.

I will load the pics i took later, i dont have time now (Errrr)

Later
Jonathan

Hey supervw, glad you finaly found a set. I want to see the fuel guage mod, my 914 guage and vw sender will show a little over 1/4 tank when I run it dry. My Od/trip od. are on the blink also.

No problem i will get some more pics of the nitty gritty to show you all what i did. ill post them all at once.

on this speedo, the ODO had a metal gear attached to the end of a metal shaft, what happend i think is the metal gear gets loose on the shaft and no logner spins WITH the shaft. so what i did was used some crazy glue on the shaft and gear to keep the gear goin with the shaft and not just spin.

Im going to paint the needles just to match them all, as the stock fuel needle is white from the beetle.

BTW i got the early style 914 gauges with the cool aluminum center caps on the needles :D i love the look of them !:P

-Jonathan

Cool. :cool: That information will come in handy when I get my gauges. :D

Pics, This is the guages with no bezels on them. i repainted the inside of the guages white to make them light up better at night, as they where discoloring (i bet it wont make much of a diff... but i did it anyways).

I striped the bezels down to bare metal with paint striper. and repainted them semi gloss black. they are drying right now.

I will try to get them back together tomorrow.

...And i will post some more pics of the fuel gauge mod later ;)

nice job. looks great. i went a different route and ditched the whole gauge and replaced it with a 911 which has oil temp and pressure. i am just going to run a separate fuel VDO. hope it is accurate. :rolleyes:

real nice job... let us know how it works out for you :D

Great jod, super, I like what you did to the fuel gauge...crafty!



John

Thanks!

Ill get some more pics tomorrow of the fuel gauge mod. Aswell as the finnished product :D!

-Jonathan

write it as a tech article. templates are available on the gl.com main page.

I will try, im already stacked for time as it is... being a full time student, working after school and builing an engine and restoring my dub kinda fills the plate.

I hear ya man, besides the full time student thing...good luck to ya:D

Can't wait to see those pics...


John

Pics of fuel gauge mod
 

Here are some pics of the fuel gauge mod, Most of you likely have not seen inside a 914 fuel gauge. so talking about it might be kinda hard for some to understand. (maybe its my explaining aswell.

Anyways, if you look you can see a little metal tab on the inside of the guage, i think this is a light deflector/ heat reflector? well anyways, you have to cut a corner off of it to allow the super beetle gauge to fit.
the other thing you must modify on the 914 gauge is a cover for the back where the stock 914 gauge insert goes. you will have to make a template from the metal one to make a plastic one (or any non conductive material at 1.5mm-2.5mm thick should work well). you will also have to drill holes for all the mounting screws(4 total), along with two larger holes for the beetle fuel gauge insert posts... for this you will have to play around with hole placment to get the gauge to fit inside corectly and not be all lopsided when you look at the guage faces. For this i used a temporary clear plastic backing plate to look down and play around with the position and mark its position once i found the sweet spot ;)
You will also notice on the beetle fuel gauge insert that it has a square shape to its face, you will need to cut the edges at the bottom in order for the beetle fuel gauge face to line up with the window of the 914 gauge,here i used the stock backing plate inorder to get a nice clean radius that matches the inside of the guage. You will cut a little into the markings of the face, but if you cut them clean and take your time it will look clean! You will also have to bend the ends of the beetle fuel gauge face (there 90 deg bends stock, make them a 45deg or so) this will let the face cover more area inside so you dont see the inside of the gauge from the window.( a little will show, but nothing you would notice unless you looked VERY close from an angle).

You will also need to make a new ground conection for all the light, and wire up the stock beetle fuel gauge ground conction aswell (forgot that that little box thingy is called... but the ground concect to it then to one end of the fuel guage posts Via a conector.

Most of all BE CREATIVE! im sure there are better ways of doing this, or other ways. but i did it the best way i know how.

If you have more indepth questions, just ask ;) but dont blame me if you scew up your mod if you guys atempt this

PICS!

Had to use another post :mad:

more pics :D

Not bad man....not bad at all!:)

you did a pretty good job of explaining the prosess you took...

KUDOS!:D


John

Hey thanks!

If I was to do an article it would be layed out way cleaner and a bit more indepth.
Maybe even include things on disasembly, cleaning and painting the bezels?

Later
Jonathan

Just thought I'd post mine. I modified my 914 Tach to use the Alt/Gen Light and Oil Pressure Light out of one of the other 914 gauges (since it is now front and center). Looks pretty good, I think (although they could be a bit brighter). Cheers!

Hey, looks good! very clean looking! i like that 4 gauge setup you have going. wont work on a 1303 though :P but for standard dashs thats what i would do.

Up date, goin with silver
 

Hehehe... Ok so i was hangin out at my dads work (porsche, vw dealer) and they had a 911 turbo or somthing (new one) in the shop, anyways it had silver/ aluminum interior accents all over including silver gauge bezels... They looked super cool with a black interior! so i picked up some silver paint, painted them up, i already repaineted them black... but tryed silver and must say it looks great! and it should look even better next to a carbon fiber dash :D!
Although i will have to paint the VDO oil temp/ press and volt gauges im getting silver to or maybe opt for some AutoMeter silver gauges.

What do you guys think?

-Jonathan

Nice...

You have got the silver spot on, not to bright not to dull, it looks real cool :agree:


Rob.

That looks great with the silver dots in the gauge centers. :agree:

Yeah the aluminum dots fit perfectly in with silver bezels for sure!
i tryed a few silvers to get one i liked, this one was the best, only problem is its not very durable, so im going to have to clear coat it (as per directions recomend) its a platicoat brand paint.

painting the #s
 

hi, Great job on the gauges. I have a stock vw speedo and the letters and numbers are getting somewhat faded. How did you paint yours without screwing up? also what kind of paint did you use. How difficult is the job? Thanks for your help

CJ

Thanks!

If the numbers are faded, than im not sure on going about that. The only thing i can think of is to get a new gauge (can be found cheap at swap meets) or a new face.

I did not paint the gauge faces, only the inside (behind the faces) and the rings.
But if you are not going to replace the face and just paint the rings or clean up the insides than what you have to do is get a small flat blade screwdriver, and a medium sized one to.
You have to pry the bezzels from the back till they will slip off the housing... VERY CARFULLY and gently... you MUST take your time and be very cautious not to pry to far, slip, or go to fast. it takes me almost 10-15 minuites to just get one bezzel off. you pry a little at a time as evenly as posible.

For you it sounds that it might be easier to just get a new gauge.

Jonathan

Fantastic, very clean look. :agree: :agree: