Alright, time for another update. I had planned on getting an early start on the console today as I had planned on taking the day off.........Work prevailed so I ended up working most the day. I met up with Frizlefrak and Rick88 for lunch around noon and ofcourse, when you get 3 or more Fiero nuts together, it's not long before a few hours have gone by. We stopped by Rick88's house to see his latest acquisition. It is the first one I have ever seen in person. It is a beautiful car and now I want one...... Here's a few shots of Rick's new Fiero.











And a very nice 88 GT to boot:


I finally got back home and went to work on the console around 3:30. Finsihed up around 1 am.

More to come!

Pat

[This message has been edited by katatak (edited 12-12-2009).]

Then some clean up!

Went around the part and circled all the holes with a sharpie:

[This message has been edited by katatak (edited 12-12-2009).]

I wanted to try my hand at building a custom gauge pod face plate to hold 3 - 2" gauges (H2O temp, OP and Volts). I wanted to angle the gauges toward the driver but was not sure how to do it. I have been reading Archie's Mirua Project and trying to glean as much knowledge as I could. At first, I thought I would just make some fiberglass "rings" to mount the gauges into. Heck, Archie's guys make it look pretty easy. I should be able to do that. Guess what? It is way tougher than it looks. It takes a lot of talent and experience to make nice round fiberglass tubes/parts. After several attempts, I failed miserably. I had given up on the idea pretty much and was going to make a flat plate, drill 3 holes and mount the guages flat in the gauge pod. Last night I was out in the shop rummaging around my various boxes of junk and came across a piece of 2" PVC pipe. Much to my surprise, the 2" gauge fit perfect. Click....the light bulb came on.

Today, I cut 3 pieces off the pipe - 3/4" wide. I took a stock gauge pod face plate and traced it out onto the extra think panel I made last night then cut it out slighty larger than the trace. I then used my bench sander to "shape" the new face plate to fit the pod. Then I drilled the 4 mounting holes and laid out the 3 gauge holes. Off to the drill press. I messed up and used the wrong size hole saw so the holes were a little bigger than I wanted them to be. Fiberglass is so forgiving. You can fix just about any goof you make.

Roughing out the face plate:


Test fitting in the pod: I know, the pod is warped. I will replace this one with a better one once I am done mocking it up.


Checking it out on the AC surround:


The Gauges I will use have the threaded lock ring on the back. I had to cut down the locking ring so it would fit the rings:

[This message has been edited by katatak (edited 12-12-2009).]

Next I had to fit up the 3 rings. I simply "super glued" the rings in place. It took a little bit of patience but I got them pretty close to where I wanted them: You can see just how big the holes were. My bad!


You can see here that I got the right one "off" the angle slightly. I will adjust the other 2 to match later:


Checking the fit: Look at those huge gaps! Looks like Caca........



Once I got them close, I cut some (2) mat fiberglass the same shape as the plate. Then I mixed up some resin and glassed the back side.


When the glass was set on the back side, I turned it over and used some epoxy to fill the "gap" in the "too" large holes I made.

[This message has been edited by katatak (edited 12-12-2009).]

Now with the gauges sitting at an angle in the face plate, I had to grind off the 2 screw bosses inside the pod. These are the 2 screw bosses thatt hold the stock gauges in the pod. There's no going back now!



Now some more test fitting:








Then some sanding and filling:


And some filler primer to find the spots that need work:

[This message has been edited by katatak (edited 12-12-2009).]