Since these are no longer made and not readily available and I needed something to hold guages this is what I came up with.

For starters I KNOW THE PICTURES ARE TERRIBLE AND I NEED A BETTER CAMERA I only posted them so people could get the general idea if they decide to make one.


The main problem I saw when thinking of how to make a holder was devising a way to secure it into place. After popping the center grill the answer was pretty obvious; just attach it to that. A simple strip of plastic and two screws later that issue was over.

Next was how to make a gauge holder that held the gauges well and hide the wires. I had several ideas but when walking thru Lowes I saw them, a box of 2" PVC elbows . Just cut one side off and your left with a pretty good curve that is fully enclosed. Only problem left was I needed to expand the hole, so we made a cutting tool that quickly and with no fuss expanded the hole to the correct diameter.

After that we cut small passages into the sides of the PVC at the bottom so wires could be run to all the gauges. Next we used PVC cement to attach the gauge holders to the plastic sheet. After this we put Devcon(metal putty) in between the PVC to give strength and cover the passages from view.
With the PVC now attached we cut away the excess from the plastic sheet and sanded down the Devcon.

Thats as far as we've gotten.
Next is to cut a hole into the bottom of a middle gauge so the wires can come up and through to all the gauges. Aftet that I have to decide if I want the gauge pod itself to rotate around or just sit in a fixed position. After that comes the paint and then I should be done.

I already made one mistake that I hope I can fix easily and I know there is several ways to improve the design. It will not look as good as injection molding because I can't duplicate the texture with paint but Im going to try my best to make it look good. Its not a show car so Im not too concerned.

 

This is a very simple project that anyone can do, I hope some others try it and this thread provides some help.

 

look a lot like flyrx7's pods. but cool

 

Cant see shiznit

 

AFAIK his was injected molded which costs a lot to get setup. You can make this kind of pod for cheap. The main difference is his look very pro/OEM while mine will look painted and made from PVC elbows.

Of course they look similar they both hold gauges and mount in the center speaker position

You need to click on the picture, they are thumbnails (even after clicking them it won't look much better but it will be a bigger).

 

I was emailed that there was going to be more of these made by the end of march. I hope!

 

Even though nobody really cares here are the finished pictures (taken with a better camera ). This holder could look A LOT better with less Devcon or a lot more sanding lol. Unfortunately my "engineer" thought that it needed to be able to withstand nuclear blasts so he put too much Devcon.

Im a function over form kinda guy so the non smoothness in the paint doesnt matter to me, FYI the paint is called "hammered" paint and gives things a nice texture and some gloss.

Once again this is very easy and cheap to do and can be done to accomadate 2,3,4,5 and I guess 6+ gauges if you wanted.

When I have time Im going to attach my wideband to the top of pod.

 

It looks alot better than my bent piece of aluminum with velcro on it! Im still waiting. 1000.00 dollars worth of gauges and 2.00 worth of alumimun. It need to be on a 62 chevy truck.

 

not a big fan of the snail shell looking pods, they stick out and draw the eye too much.

 

I'm with Karack. I hate all those type, they look like macaroni noodles. What I would do if I was you (I have thought about doing this myself) is take your pods right now and fiberglass over them or bondo the gaps between the PVC elbows and make the gaps slightly dip instead of that big dip and make the sides taper out instead of just cutting off at the end. It would look so much better. Also I would make them sit a big lower to the dash, almost touching but not quite. ****, if you did em like that I would by a tri set

 

Nevertheless, nice mod. A little creativity goes a long way. Good job

 

doesnt look bad...ive always wanted one of them pods from flyrx7

 

For how much would you be willing to make a 3 guage on and sell it?

 

That sounds like my dad talking LOL. He wanted to do that for me but I told him I wasn't going for looks. Like I said several times I can already think of several things that could be done better. That idea is one of them. I wanted to just use PVC cement to hold them in place w/o the Devcon because I knew it would be impossible to get a smooth good looking shape.

As for the shape, its the best that can be without injection molding.

As it sits now, its touching the dash. Im going to raise it so there is no touching. I don't know of a way to lower the overall height because Im using the speaker mount and mounting on top of that. Once again that is the easy way.

I dont have the time to make another (took me two weeks to finish this one, maybe 1 hour total of work?). Its not hard I encourage others to try.

 

Good job. I'm sure this will get some creative juices flowing. I know I'm already thinking about how I would make it look...

 

Kinda looks like you got some zoomie headers coming out of your dash

 

mario to the warp zone engage

looks good