leprcon

i want to make the gauge cluster work out of my donor car and mold it in my dash. anyone ever do this? easy/hard? i sent my harness out to speartech and he said he would try i have everything out of a trailblazer ss and thought it would be cool to have a new gauge cluster in my truck

04600rr

iTrader: (12)

I thought about doing this once.......it could turn out really cool or all jacked up......What is the set up( as in what cluster into what dash)? If the price isn't bad you might try this on a salvage yard dash just to see how things work out.

leprcon

putting trailblazer ss cluster in a 81 blazer fullsize. im juust going to mold the cluster to the factory bezel and paint it to match. i just hope someone else has done this

leonpiper69

iTrader: (3)

i got one form the junk yard for 15 bucks form a v6 car. its super easy and it doesnt matter weahter the car was a v6 or v8.

matty b

better make sure that the dash matches the engine family first off.. I ran into ALOT of problems trying to install a C6 vette dash with a 99 ls1 into a 65 vette GS clone. Some of the issues were that the gen 4 pcms "wake up" the instrument cluster as there is no ignition circuit to the cluster just a bat lead. We had to install two fuel senders to make the gas gauge read correctly as they go through the pcm and then to the dash via serial data. I dunno what dash and engine combo you plan on running but make damn sure you match the cluster to the PCM if you wanna retain the gauges and the other functions of the cluster. It would probably cost less money to actually have aftermarket gauges customized for your vehicle. A place called Redline Gauge Works can build some really cool clusters and if your time is money like mine it may actually be a better move to go that route. The gauges from a silverado or escalade are laid out in a way that you could mount autometers behind the gauge trim panel and have them look fairly close. The only issue on those is the tach and speedo kinda overlap in the center and thats where a custom shop would be able to gut the aftermarket movements and mount them onto a custom gauge face that looks like the stocker but uses simple analog senders and such. Just some advise to take into account cause the newer clusters rely on data from all the systems in the car from the pcm, bcm, abs and srs. Some lights wont turn off and youll get messages in the info center that wont go away like tire monitors and the like. Word to the wise is to stray away from the really new clusters cause they take alot of work and expertise to work in anything but the car they are made for.

leonpiper69

iTrader: (3)

same family? maybe that just apllies to vettes cuz they are diff from everything else.

i put a v6 clust on my ls motor and all gauges work fine. no lights etc.

and i just finished helping my friend do an ls (5.3 tahoe motor) into his sanoma and we got all his stock gauges to work without a problem. and this was a 98 4cyl sanoma with a 01 5.3 . sure we had to delete some stuff from the pcm. but as far as i know if its not corvette stuff (pcm/ or cluster) there should be no troubles.

mulletnotch

iTrader: (2)

I have an 05 GTO Cluster and plug for sale. Find out if Speartech can make it work with your swap and if so shoot me a PM.

leprcon

i have everything from the same trailblazer ss i just wanted to know if someone had made everything work the oil, water, speedo, tach should all work because they depend on the motor for info, the one i am worried about is the gas gauge and i was told we can program out all the lights warnings etc so lets say someone did a swap from like a vette to a camaro has anyone used a vette dash to work with it?

mulletnotch

iTrader: (2)

From what I know most everything gets its signal from the serial data cable. So yes most all of what you listed will get its signal feed from the one wire. Gas gauge will or should work so long as the sending unit reads the same or similar ohms for full and empty. I know with some of the tuning software you can also make adjustments with what it sees as full and empty I think..... lol

leonpiper69

iTrader: (3)

correct as long as its the same as a tahoe (wich i think it is) when deleating stuff in the tune you just tell the ecm what size (how many gal.) the tank is.

although the gas gauge if i remember right was a diff wire than the serial data.

matty b

the vette dash has alot of things built into the actual cluster that will not work without matching hardware elsewhere in the vehicle. The gas gauge runs on two fuel sender inputs and requires two senders, you cannot just splice off of the sender lead and hook it to the secondary it just doesnt work. Secondly there isnt much on the vette that will work without having the corvette pcm hooked up. Thats pretty easy if you have a tech2 to download a vette OS. We tried making the dash live with a camaro OS and nothing worked. Also the airbag, abs and tire monitors will not work and short of desoldering the bulbs and just dealing with the tire pressure low message stuck on in the DIC there isnt much you can do. More or less for everything to work you must set up the cars senders as they would be in the in a stock car. As far as families, Im talking about body codes so a F body will not intermix with a Y body and so on. As long as the dash being used mathes with the program loaded to the PCM most everything will work. The tach and speedo are very easy cause they have their own outputs from the pcm. The coolant and oil are on serial data and the gas gauge is also on its own lead from the PCM. I would recommend staying away from a dash that runs on CAN like brand new vehicles such as C6 and excalades ect. Hope that helps and if you need me to post schmatics for a certain dash so you can see what needs to be hooked up just lemme know.

leprcon

i was using the vette camaro as a example. so if i am understanding right i won,t be able to make the factory cluster work from the trailblazer? i won,t do it if the tire sender crap and other stuff can't be programed out. i was using it because i thought it would be cool to go with but if its going to be a big thing than i proabaly will go with a dakota digital dash. i am still waiting to see if speartech can even do this?