Nothing's worse than playing the guessing game, unless you're on a game show, but when it comes to your truck's lifeline, don't take chances. Gauges that don't work or aren't there are a very bad thing; the old adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" comes to mind. If only you knew your motor just lost oil pressure or was so hot a head gasket or worse was about to blow. Even if your truck isn't going to win best of show, wouldn't it be nice to make it to the show?
Many classic trucks out there are work/play vehicles, and we can relate. The '72 Chevy that's been the subject of a few tech stories recently is still very much a work in progress, but a driver nonetheless, and its stock gauges weren't cutting it. Even with a few upgrades to the drivetrain, the motor still hasn't been rebuilt and has who knows how many miles on it at this point. The dash is the one area the driver stares at the most, and it should be treated as such.
Since the stock gauge panel was worse for the wear and had a hole cut in it for a temperature gauge, we figured its time was up, too. Doc's Kustom specializes in billet dash panels for almost anything and happens to be good friends with the guys over at Dolphin Instruments, so they team up quite a bit to offer complete packages. For '67-72 Chevy trucks, Doc's makes a glovebox door to match their gauge panel to really set things off. After talking to Doc on the phone about what we were looking for, something that resembled a stock gauge panel more than a billet one, he said no problem. One-offs are their specialty, and the panel would be built to use Dolphin's six-gauge package with the 5-inch speedo and tachometer, much like the original GM fully instrumented dash layout. And just to prove that thinking outside the box is a good thing, we took Doc's gauge panel and glovebox door one step further before installing it (which worked out great, but voids any return possibility). We have a lot to cover, so let's get started, and don't be afraid of electrical projects! If we can do this, so can you!
Here's our Dolphin mechanical six-gauge set with white faces and polished stainless bezels. All the Dolphin gauges come with fuel, oil, and temperature sending units.
Doc says one-off gauge panels are his specialty, so I asked him to leave out the ball-milled grooves and put a border around the perimeter of the gauge panel and glovebox door to mimic the stock pieces, which he gladly did.
What I'm about to do next will void returning the panels to Doc and falls more under our new DIY column, but it should make these pieces stand out even more. I masked off the outside perimeter and followed it up with another layer of masking tape, because I'm going to bead-blast the center of both pieces. Follow along. | 
Halfway through and you can see the blasted side on the right and the raw side on the left. |
Here's why I did all that preliminary work-wrinkle finish paint! After this is done I'm hoping it'll have a stock-type black wrinkle finish in the center with the bright edges, which could be polished if you want to take this a step or two further. Look at craft stores for this paint, since the auto parts store will look at you funny when you ask them for it. | |