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'67 122s, in way over my head

Installed a simple 3rd brake light. The brackets are just some cheap sheet aluminum cut with tin snips and some mounting tape. Need to make better ones. The light is a $10 LED strip designed to mount above a license plate.

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Works rather well.

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Version 2 of the gauge cluster works rather nicely. Had to ditch the oil pressure gauge. I'll probably just put that in a swivel pod under the dash.

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I put it in for a dry fit today. Needs to be a smidge wider at the base to fill in the hole entirely and come forward about 5mm. There is a bit of a gap at the bottom. Clearance for the tach is tight, but that is also the deepest of the gauges. I'll start working on a new dash pad once I get this finalized. No cutting necessary to get this to work.

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You’ll still have an idiot light for oil pressure right? I assume that’s the red guy. That’d be my only hang up for putting the gauge out of your immediate line of sight. I just used one of the built-in warning lights on mine. Didn’t bother with an amp light.
 
You’ll still have an idiot light for oil pressure right? I assume that’s the red guy. That’d be my only hang up for putting the gauge out of your immediate line of sight. I just used one of the built-in warning lights on mine. Didn’t bother with an amp light.

Yep, the amber one is the idiot light for oil pressure. As far as the others red's the amp light, blue for high beams, green for blinkers (I am contemplating two blinker lights, one for either side), and a red one in the middle for the overdrive. There is an extra hole for another light. Maybe fog lamps? I know if I stick a rear fog lamp on the car (dense fog is common here) then legally I am supposed to have an indicator for it.

I've kept both the amp and oil lights because the volt and oil gauges will be out of sight. An immediate indicator something is wrong so I look at the gauge.

The lights as is are way too bright. So I'll have to figure out a way to dim them a bit. The high beam light is blinding in the dark. Maybe something slightly opaque over the bulb.
 
The speedometer works. Since I wasn't sure where an exact measured mile was I decided to do a bit of math to get the pulses per mile. I am writing it down here so others can replicate this if they want.

I used the speed sender from a 2000-2002 VW MK4 Jetta as it matched the M18x1.5 thread on the J type. I stuck a spare speedometer gear on it and rotated it one revolution and counted the pulses of the square wave on my multimeter. It had four pulses per rotation.

Now comes a bit of conjecture that seemed to work out. The transmission came from a '70 or '71 P1800 with a 4.3:1 rear end. The green books say that the speedometer should be calibrated for 992 revolutions of the speedometer cable per mile. The thing is that this assumes stock 165R15 tires and a 4.3 rear end. I am running 195/65r15s and the amazon's stock 4.10 rear end. So I figured out the proportion of driveshaft revolutions per mile to speedometer revs per mile to be 992/3417.15.

So after doing some math, which is probably a bit off, I got 3312.18 driveshaft revolutions per mile for my car which should then give me 961.53 revolutions per mile from the speedometer cable. The final result was about 3848 pulses per mile. I checked it up to 50mph with a gps speedometer and it seems to read 1-2mph fast, but I am fine with that. Far better than the old speedometer getting to 10-20mph fast at 70mph depending on its mood.

Also I lied a little bit, the faceplate doesn't require cutting, but for the tach to clear I had to trim away some metal behind the cluster, but I consider this acceptable because it is hidden by a dash pad. A lower profile tach would solve this.
 
I think a single indicator for both turn signals would be cool if you moved it to the center of the dash like the factory cluster. Are the bulbs the same as the factory ones?
 
I think a single indicator for both turn signals would be cool if you moved it to the center of the dash like the factory cluster. Are the bulbs the same as the factory ones?

I was thinking of moving the blinker to the center. Seems more symmetric. Then move the OD light I have in the middle to the side.

No, the bulbs and indicator lights are I think Lucas parts from a motorcycle or Jaguar (I know, mark of the beast) but they matched the gauges and such. Takes a 12v 2W BA7 bulb.

edit: The dash lights I got are the same sort used on an MGB.
 
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Yep, the amber one is the idiot light for oil pressure. As far as the others red's the amp light, blue for high beams, green for blinkers (I am contemplating two blinker lights, one for either side), and a red one in the middle for the overdrive. There is an extra hole for another light. Maybe fog lamps? I know if I stick a rear fog lamp on the car (dense fog is common here) then legally I am supposed to have an indicator for it.

I've kept both the amp and oil lights because the volt and oil gauges will be out of sight. An immediate indicator something is wrong so I look at the gauge.

The lights as is are way too bright. So I'll have to figure out a way to dim them a bit. The high beam light is blinding in the dark. Maybe something slightly opaque over the bulb.

Why not put the oil pressure gauge in the cluster? And the fuel gauge somewhere else. It seems to me you?d want to monitor the oil pressure regularly , while monitoring the fuel gauge would be an infrequent check.
 
Why not put the oil pressure gauge in the cluster? And the fuel gauge somewhere else. It seems to me you’d want to monitor the oil pressure regularly , while monitoring the fuel gauge would be an infrequent check.

That is a good idea. Reminds me of older Ferrari GT cars that had oil and water temperature up front with everything else to the side. I think the nice thing about having gauges like this is that I can move things around so easily.

Although I'll worry about that once I get a top cover and dash pad made.
 
Thanks for all this foot work! Incidentally, I frequently borrow parts from MK4 VW's as I've owned 3 over the past 20 years, like my seatbelt retrofit.
 
Thanks for all this foot work! Incidentally, I frequently borrow parts from MK4 VW's as I've owned 3 over the past 20 years, like my seatbelt retrofit.

At this point I'll probably be buying a 3d printer and developing replacement parts for this car. A bunch of stuff like bushings for the seatbelt pivots would be nice to just print instead of sifting through spec sheets to find one with the right dimensions.
 
Traced my issues with my HS6 carbs to running too rich (my fault) and a worn throttle linkage. Decided to throw on some HIF6 carbs I had finished rebuilding so I could still drive around while dealing with the HS ones. I also decided to experiment a little with managing heat so I added spacers from a Triumph TR6 and rerouted the fuel line away from the exhaust and upper radiator hose. I also put a heat resistant sleeve on it. The car is happier when warm now.

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The aftermarket cluster is all wired up and working. I am trying to get my 3d printer to do ASA or ABS plastic without warping. Once that is done I cam print and upholster a top/hood to go on it. I am probably going to print another version that is a smidge wider at the base to take up the extra space on either side and ditch the center bottom indicator light.
From left to right we have lights for the alternator, high beams, blinkers, overdrive, and oil pressure warning. The one at the bottom is just to fill the hole and does nothing.

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Put the gauges I don't look at as often down below the heater controls next to my bank of switches. I was able to get a clean print of a improved switch bracket.

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I also made a prototype of a new dash pad. It is just 1/2" high density foam with a sheet of vinyl glued to it.

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Looks great! Warf would approve and want to use it as his starship shuttle craft.

Thanks, next on the list is wrapping up the interior. Then I'll tackle bumping the compression ratio, hardened valve seats, and adding a 123 distributor so I can dial in the timing more precisely to suit the motor. Paint will happen someday...

I've got some recaro seat hinges with rather pitted chrome that I am refurbishing right now.
 
Update on the Recaro hinges.

These things are a pain to take apart and put back together. I got a set of kind of run down ones for pretty cheap from a for sale thread. The chrome was rather bad (seemingly notorious for being thin) and one hinge was already taken apart. Apparently the end of the pivot shaft is squished to secure the whole thing together. So you have to grind that off and drill/tap the pivot rod thing. Using 10-24 screws was recommended to me so that is what I used.


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Everything got cleaned and dunked in a vat of degreaser. Since the chrome was already messed up I decided to emulate what I've seen on some of the Porsche equivalents of these hinges, wrinkle black paint. Turned out pretty well. I do have one of the shaped washers upside down in this shot.

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I was missing one of the little black center caps so instead of trying to track one of those down I decided to 3d print some 3mm thick washers with rounded edges that would be held in place with the screws now holding the hinges together. A counter sunk slotted screw to match the one already on the outside hinge rounded it all out. Although I did miss an edge at the bottom. I need to go over that with some touch up paint.

The weird thing about the VHT wrinkle black is that while it sticks great to old beaten up chrome it gets these little shiny bits that aren't the chrome peeking through. Just a way that a wrinkle in the paint will catch the light sometimes.

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I'll probably rechrome these properly someday, but until then this will do nicely. They'll also be easier to take apart for new chrome.
 
Finished a prototype for the new gauge cluster cover. Now to upholster it. It could probably use a tweak or two, but good enough for the time being.

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So the previous top piece for my gauge cluster didn't last long. Turns out black PETG just can't hold up to dashboard temperatures without warping over time. So now we are onto ASA (a UV resistant variant of ABS). The key thermal property of the plastic I have to worry about is
heat deflection temperature, or at what temperature a test part will bend under a given load. Apparently PETG has one that is too low for the dash board, even in winter.

The downside of going to more heat tolerant and stronger plastics like ASA, ABS, Nylon, and Polycarbonate is that they get harder to print. Difference in temperature across the part will cause it warp while printing and once you get to Nylon and PC upgrades to the printer are necessary
to hit the right nozzle temperature. So I had to play around with settings, build plate material, and get an enclosure to make sure the temperature remains constant around the printer.

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My printer isn't big enough to print the whole thing in one go so I did it in two pieces, super glued them together, and filled any imperfections with a thin coat of body filler. Then I'll glue some vinyl down to it using contact adhesive. That should cover the layer lines and the bondo.

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Up until now I've been using the rear door handles off of a 144/145 on my Amazon as the original handles were falling apart (foam/vinyl overmolding had detached from the metal frame). I found a model online someone had made of Amazon door handles. Since these parts are not on the dash and are significantly thicker warping if they end up hot enough should be negligible to nonexistent.
Two 17 hour prints later I have a set of new door handles.

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To continue with the 3D printing kick the stock round air filters on the HS6 carbs always bothered me. I personally prefer paper over the oil and cotton or foam. Also the stock filters are $30 a piece.
I was also running into issues with the crankcase breather nozzle on the filter housing. Two bolt carbs had a weird little part that fit between the filter and the carb that the hose attached to. I preferred the three bolt SU arrangement where it just has a fitting on the filter housing. Fewer parts to mess with.
To get the best of both worlds and not have extra holes in the air filter plates I decided to print my own plates to fit paper filters that met the right dimensions.
The filters I ended up with are Wix part number 42032, which I think is for the stock air filter housings on a Pontiac big block with a Tri-Power setup. Now the cost to change the air filters is $20 instead of $60.

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Been a while since I posted so I should probably share what I've done in the mean time. I've done some more adjustments to the dashboard. I encountered an issue with the vinyl I used popping out of the chrome trim. I had some piping left over from the seats so that fixed that issue. I also made another revision of my gauge cluster that hasn't warped in the sun so far. Along with switching to a bow tie steering wheel.

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Recently also moved from Santa Cruz to Livermore, less concern about salt and rust but more about heat. We hit 116 degrees Fahrenheit recently with days regularly above 90. So on went the electric fan as some form of insurance just in case the car starts to get really hot in traffic. Since my B20 is not fuel injected I was able to stick a fan switch in the forward coolant sensor hole.

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This also meant fixing some wiring issues in the engine bay to accommodate another relay. I found a relay mounting bar from a P1800 and decided to use that. From left to right I have the flasher relay, reverse lights, a fuse box for the fan and fog lights, fan and fog light relays, and a horn relay.

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Really I think the engine bay is just about put together for now. I'd like to fit a brake booster but I've found myself getting used to manual brakes more than I thought I would.

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