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Hey, it's Freiburger here. you caught me in the
middle of installing gauges in the
Crusher Camaro which is like
excruciating to watch you feel really
really happy that it hit the cutting
room floor on the episode of Roadkill
Garage where we're building that car
however I do have some interesting
things to share with you about buying
aftermarket gauges because I've been
through this a million times
let me crimp this thing I will have some
show-and-tell
I took my wiring pretty seriously by the
way have you seen this doohickey before
we get into gauges check this out this
is an automatic wire stripper acquired
from the swap meet this is a ideal brand
stripper made in Sycamore Illinois USA
ironically the same place where Auto
Meter gauges is Wow I just discovered
that but look you put the wire in the
correct hole for stripping and then all
you do is squeeze the pliers and bam
stripped I love that tool anyway gauges
two things to know first of all there
are electrical gauges which use sending
units in the engine like this and then
there's what's called mechanical gauges
which use a physical mechanical
connection to the engine for example
that's a temperature probe that would go
in the water jacket and then that is a
little clear line that would plumb oil
to your engine to the gauge to tell your
oil pressure now there's some
significant things to consider when
you're buying one gauge over the other
first of all look at the difference here
mechanical gauges are frequent
what they call a full sweep or they
might call it 270 degrees sweep the
needle moves from all the way over here
to all the way over there you can get
mechanical gauges both ways both partial
sweep or 90 degrees sweep like these or
full sweep like those electrical gauges
like this tend to come in just a partial
sweep like what you're looking at there
you can buy electrical gauges in either
design full suite bar partial suite but
the full sweep electric gauges are way
more expensive than the half sweep or
partial sweep like this so that's
something to look at when you're buying
the gauges because you want to look at
the gauge line that you're considering
for example Auto Meter offers like I
can't even tell you how many gauge lines
Pro comp and classic and phantom and all
sorts of stuff you want to make sure
that all of the gauges in the line that
you are considering are available in the
same suite because personally I like all
the gauges to have the same sweep on
them I don't like having a full sweep
water temp and then a partial sweep on
the on the oil however volts is almost
always a partial sweep and because of
that for the Crusher Camaro right here I
ended up choosing electrical gauges for
every circumstance so a couple other
things to think about on whether you're
going to get electrical versus
mechanical first of all with mechanical
it means that you've got to ring you
have to rig this doohickey through the
firewall up and into your water jacket
and these things also are sensitive if
you bend them at a more than a 90 degree
angle or if you bend it back and forth a
bunch of times the capillary tube inside
this thing can break open and then your
gauge doesn't work anymore also the
cable that they send is permanently
attached to the gauge you can't take it
out and that means a pain in the neck in
running the the sensor capillary tube
through the hole in your mounting
bracket and then through the dash and
everything it does a couple things it
means it's so that you can't easily pull
the gauge back out it also means that
you have to use as much capillary tubes
they give you and you always end up
wanting it up like this underneath the
dash or it ends up being
short and that's a pain in the neck next
if you're running a mechanical oil
pressure gauge there's a couple of
downsides well the major downside
happens to be this plastic tubing right
here which if you buy cheap Chinese
gauges like these are is always like
slow super stiff and it's a pain in the
neck and this needs to run from an oil
pressure port on the engine to the
inside and the thing is you've all been
there
you've got to connect it with this
little tiny collet right here right
there that is the collet that goes
inside the fitting that squeezes this
tube onto its fitting it's tiny and if
you're in the middle of nowhere and your
line breaks this collet is probably
either going to get lost or it's already
crushed you can't use it again it's a
giant pain in the neck also I have had
these plastic lines melt I've had them
pop off the back of a gauge I've had
them get old and brittle and crack when
that happens you've got a hose with oil
pressure going inside your car and it
oil absolutely everywhere the NHRA does
not allow this and so you can buy
braided steel lines to go from your
engine to your gauge but that's even
more expense this is one of the reasons
why I like an electrical gauge down
sides of the electrical gauge is of
course you need to run a whole bunch of
wires everywhere it's really not too bad
whether you've got a water temp sending
unit or an oil pressure sending unit
it's just one wire it goes to the gauge
not that big of a deal
there are more advanced gauges that have
more wires than that but the other
advantage of an electrical gauge system
is that if you've got data logging on
the car or plan to at any time you can
usually SAP the information that you
need either off of the sensor or more
likely off of one of the new modern
gauges that offers the data logging
feature they've got the five volt or low
voltage I think it's five low voltage
output for the data logger built right
into the gauge and so that's also
something to think about last thing you
know the gauge is either come in two
inch or two and a sixteenth or two and
five-eighths inch size this is the
smaller of those which I prefer and
that's just some things that you need to
and by the way this is not sponsored by
Auto Meter they haven't paid me for this
but Auto Meter tends to be my favorite
go-to gauge they are made in USA the
auto gauge line from the same company is
not and of course this thing that I paid
eighteen dollars for is also not
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