New-Old Gauge Setups

[loose_electron]

Hey Everyone -

Looking to upgrade the gauges in a 1963 Series 2 Alpine. The power train has been updated to a V6 2.8 with a T5 transmission, and the original instruments are in the car but not yet connected and running.

Couple different ways of going -

VDO Series 1 gauges http://www.egauges.com/Series-1-Gauges-s/30108.htm

Smiths Instruments http://www.smiths-instruments.co.uk/classic

Original instruments with tweaks and modifications (re-calibrate tach and adapt the speedo)

Since the car is already a retro-mod, I am not averse to new gauges with similar to original look. Plus, the simpler electronic interfaces would make things easier to deal with.

Thoughts and opinions? Have seen some discussions archived here on this, but figured it could not hurt to ask the question.

Thanks,
Jerry

 

[Green67Alpine]

Howdy Jerry,
It's your car! Do what you're comfortable with, once a V6 is in there you should feel free to make any mods you care for.
I'm in the process of building a SV V6 , and already have decided to use new gauges, led lighting, and well AC .
Enjoy your Alpine.

Tom j

 

[Tom H]

Jerry,

The original temp and fuel gauges for a Series III - V are quite good, assuming you can install late series senders. A Series II tach would be a mechanical tach, that would be difficult to connect to a V6, unless the PO has supplied a SIV or SV Electronic tach.

See my write up on updating the components in the electronic tach. It's easy to recal for V6.

http://www.sunbeamalpine.org/downloads/alpine_tach_repair_rev5.pdf

Should be a piece of cake for a guy with your resume!

Tom

 

[DanR]

Jerry, I have two of the recalibrated Alpine Tach gauges that Tom did, they are great for my V6s....

 

[Toyanvil]

I went with the VDO in white.

 

[DanR]

Here again that is a fantastic set of gauges

Question: the far right is for your heater/defro/ ?

Is it electronic or cable?

DanR

 

[Toyanvil]

Cable for the heater, it is the stock Sunbeam turned vertical.

 

[v13311]

You might want to look over Speedhut gauges.


www.speedhut.com

 

[loose_electron]

Jerry,

The original temp and fuel gauges for a Series III - V are quite good, assuming you can install late series senders. A Series II tach would be a mechanical tach, that would be difficult to connect to a V6, unless the PO has supplied a SIV or SV Electronic tach.

See my write up on updating the components in the electronic tach. It's easy to recal for V6.

http://www.sunbeamalpine.org/downloads/alpine_tach_repair_rev5.pdf

Should be a piece of cake for a guy with your resume!

Tom

Tom:

Point to point wiring with leaded axial components. Plus a Digi-Key BOM! - LOL - starting to look like work there!

As an EE (and used to be a DIY homebrew radio amateur as well) it looks like a pretty straightforward component update, but I am hesitant to go that path to maintain the original gauges. Modernizing the electrical components of the car seems to be a wise path, although not staying true to the original design.

Not sure which way I am going as of yet... Still researching.

 

[Ken Ellis]

While not a full-on sheepskin-totin' EE, I do have more than a passing familiarity with the wiley electrons, and a strong DIY bent as well. In spite of those characteristics, I chose to have Tom doctor my tach rather than doing it myself because then I wouldn't have to make a test/calibration jig, and his insight into the circuit and mechanisms meant he could do a better and faster job than me. This freed me up to do some of the other 90 things on the list. Tom's tach service was quick and cost-effective.

Don't know if he still does it, or what the current rate is, but I can certainly recommend it if still available.

 

[Tom H]

Hey Jerry,

Not sure you noticed, but I sell the whole kit of 7 parts for $10, so ya don't have to order from Digi-Key. Or I can do the job for you, for a fee. I do not do it for the money, but just to help out fellow Sunbeamers.

Do you have an Alpine electronic tach ? Do you have later Series temp and fuel gauges?

If you end up going with original Alpine gauges I can help.

Tom

 

[loose_electron]

Hey Jerry,

Not sure you noticed, but I sell the whole kit of 7 parts for $10, so ya don't have to order from Digi-Key. Or I can do the job for you, for a fee. I do not do it for the money, but just to help out fellow Sunbeamers.

Do you have an Alpine electronic tach ? Do you have later Series temp and fuel gauges?

If you end up going with original Alpine gauges I can help.

Tom

Tom - thanks for the offer - if I go electronic original tach modify I will give it to you to do the fix-adjust. It's the old saying "throw time at it or throw money at it" and in this case it will be a bit of both.

It's a Series 2 vehicle and I am pretty sure that it is a mechanical tach. I have 2 beat up mechanical drive cables in the odds-n-ends collection I got with the car and I suspect one is tach and the other is speedo.

In order to go original instruments, I would have to get an electronic tach, modify it and then I still got to deal with the speedometer issue. That raises the question of adapting a T5 transmission sending unit to a Alpine speedo cable and the proper gear ratios to make that accurate. Reading the forums shows that is a an exercise in getting an instrument shop to custom build a drive cable with Ford at one end and Sunbeam-Jaeger at the other.

How do I tell the difference between older-newer temp-fuel gauges? I suspect that the instruments there are whatever came in the Series 2 in 1963.

 

[Tom H]

Jerry, If you have the original mechanical tach, then you probably have the original series II gauges. I think early series gauges have white needles and later series have red needles. The real way to be sure is to look at the rear of the temp and fuel gauges. Early series have the connection terminals up higher on the rear, and two adjuster nuts lower. The later series gauges have the connections right at the "equator" .

The early series gauges are moving magnet movements with a bridge arrangement of two coils to move the needle. They work well also, and the bridge arrangement of the coils makes them pretty accurate even with varying battery voltage.

The later series are simpler, using a bi-metal to move the needle based on the current flowing thru a heating coil. The movements are thus much steadier and less "bouncy", but require a "Voltage stabilizer" to maintain an avg 10 V supply. The original system uses a similar bi-metal and heater, to create a 2 hz on-off regulator that maintains an avg of 10 V (actually about 10.8 V RMS). Modern solid state versions producing 10 V DC are available.

Have fun choosing your solution.

Tom

 

[DanR]

Jerry, There is an outfit in Texas, Texas Industrial that did a set up for me. I sent them my Speedo and cable assembly from my '67 SV and told them I wanted the ability to mate to a late model Mustang T5.

Work very good.

 

[loose_electron]

Yes they are the original series 2 instruments. Mechanical speedo and tach. Having been under the dashboard quite a bit in the last 2 days, I think it is going to be wiser to go modern instruments with a similar look to the original. Will pick a new set from VDO or Speedhut.

Since it's a resto-mod, not trying to maintain perfect original setup.

Have to sort out the electrical system a bit, since it uses the original wiring harness with a bunch of add-ons. Plus whoever did some of the wiring left a few floaters and things wadded up underneath that can go away. Typical stuff for a restored-updated car, but floating wires and uninsulated anything gets my attention. Cleaning things up and getting a better understanding of what's there as I go.

If the original instruments used a bridge magnetic field method, I salute the designers! This was from the era when transistors and voltage regulators were exotic things and doing a bridge circuit to cancel out the variable battery-generator-alternator power against the sensor reading is a clever solution.

Additional Question - Does anyone know the resistance range of the sending unit in the fuel tank? This is the series 2 with the one central fuel tank.

Got to figure out where all the sending units are on the motor-tranny and get those routed to under the dash, while getting ready for new instruments. Pretty much every gauge is dead, so getting this resolved is top of the list.

Jerry, If you have the original mechanical tach, then you probably have the original series II gauges. I think early series gauges have white needles and later series have red needles. The real way to be sure is to look at the rear of the temp and fuel gauges. Early series have the connection terminals up higher on the rear, and two adjuster nuts lower. The later series gauges have the connections right at the "equator" .

The early series gauges are moving magnet movements with a bridge arrangement of two coils to move the needle. They work well also, and the bridge arrangement of the coils makes them pretty accurate even with varying battery voltage.

The later series are simpler, using a bi-metal to move the needle based on the current flowing thru a heating coil. The movements are thus much steadier and less "bouncy", but require a "Voltage stabilizer" to maintain an avg 10 V supply. The original system uses a similar bi-metal and heater, to create a 2 hz on-off regulator that maintains an avg of 10 V (actually about 10.8 V RMS). Modern solid state versions producing 10 V DC are available.

Have fun choosing your solution.

Tom

 

[Tom H]

Jerry,

A couple years ago Chazbeam and I figured out the Series I and II gauges and senders.

From 0 to full scale on both the fuel and temp gauges requires the sender to go from about 100 Ohms for 0 on the dial to about 20 ohms for mid scale to about 7 or 10 ohms for full scale. So that's the range of the senders for Empty to Full on the fuel and 90 to 230 deg on the temp.

See post 20 on this thread for more detail:
http://www.sunbeamalpine.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13700

Tom

 

[loose_electron]

Tom - Very useful, that made for an interesting read! Thanks! - Jerry

Jerry,

A couple years ago Chazbeam and I figured out the Series I and II gauges and senders.

From 0 to full scale on both the fuel and temp gauges requires the sender to go from about 100 Ohms for 0 on the dial to about 20 ohms for mid scale to about 7 or 10 ohms for full scale. So that's the range of the senders for Empty to Full on the fuel and 90 to 230 deg on the temp.

See post 20 on this thread for more detail:
http://www.sunbeamalpine.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13700

Tom

 

[Chazbeam]

Thanks for the mention tom

Jerry,

A couple years ago Chazbeam and I figured out the Series I and II gauges and senders.

From 0 to full scale on both the fuel and temp gauges requires the sender to go from about 100 Ohms for 0 on the dial to about 20 ohms for mid scale to about 7 or 10 ohms for full scale. So that's the range of the senders for Empty to Full on the fuel and 90 to 230 deg on the temp.

See post 20 on this thread for more detail:
http://www.sunbeamalpine.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13700

Tom

Yeah i have not revisited this issue in a while..my gauges still are off from the sender and i could never find another one that had the right spec's so i just use it as is for now but would love to find the right part number for the right sender for the series 1 & 2 if it even exists... Now i just really use it just to tell me if i'm overheating is all.. i stuck a 100 ohm resister from sender to ground and this gave me better readings but its still not quite right..I know the gauges are correct because my initial bench tests on two different meters had been basically the same. Doubt much chance for me to have two of them defective the exact same way...

So the dilemma still remains... what is that dam sender number#
Seems people selling the part for what they say is series 1 & 2 is really for latter sunbeams.. The quest continues!

Side note: i still kinda like the meter fluctuation of my series 2 , makes it feel old school and i kinda like that. part of the charm.
my gal thinks the suspension squeak is too but to me that's money being worn off the bearings...

Cheers
Chaz

 

[loose_electron]

When I get to that stage of the project I will put an ohm meter on the sender and see if mine has a realistic resistance range with tank empty-full.

Present plan for the winter is to R&R the wiring harness and at the same time install a full set of Speed Hut gauges. For those gauges, you tell the gauge when tank is empty-full and it interpolates between the two values for the readout.

Got all the parts, will probably start the rewire once it cools down a bit here in S CA.

Yeah i have not revisited this issue in a while..my gauges still are off from the sender and i could never find another one that had the right spec's so i just use it as is for now but would love to find the right part number for the right sender for the series 1 & 2 if it even exists... Now i just really use it just to tell me if i'm overheating is all.. i stuck a 100 ohm resister from sender to ground and this gave me better readings but its still not quite right..I know the gauges are correct because my initial bench tests on two different meters had been basically the same. Doubt much chance for me to have two of them defective the exact same way...

So the dilemma still remains... what is that dam sender number#
Seems people selling the part for what they say is series 1 & 2 is really for latter sunbeams.. The quest continues!

Side note: i still kinda like the meter fluctuation of my series 2 , makes it feel old school and i kinda like that. part of the charm.
my gal thinks the suspension squeak is too but to me that's money being worn off the bearings...

Cheers
Chaz

 

[Chazbeam]

When I get to that stage of the project I will put an ohm meter on the sender and see if mine has a realistic resistance range with tank empty-full.

Present plan for the winter is to R&R the wiring harness and at the same time install a full set of Speed Hut gauges. For those gauges, you tell the gauge when tank is empty-full and it interpolates between the two values for the readout.

Got all the parts, will probably start the rewire once it cools down a bit here in S CA.

yeah i thought of trying to do that but I'm inclined to stay as original as possible. i don't mind the quarks. Good luck with your plan..hope it works out well..