Restoring dash or replacing with aftermarket gauges?

[misty440]

1970 Charger R/T w/ Rallye dash, when I purchased the car the wiring was a mess and some of it had melted. I replaced all wiring with used from another B body donor car 30 yrs ago. The dash partially works as in Headlight switch, wipers but none of the gauges work. I have removed the dash and applied 5V to the gauges momentarily and they move. I checked the dash voltage limiter and it works also. I dont know where else to begin to troubleshoot and I am now wondering if it is worth attempting to fix and then restore the gauges with a thought that a short (fire) can occur or is it better to upgrade to new gauges with new wiring considering the wires are very old? Although I would like to keep it looking stock I am not opposed to making a new dash with updated gauges for reliability and safety. Thoughts on rewiring the entire car with new wiring and any suggestions to that and how to make it better (redesign to prevent a fire) I appreciate everyone's feedback.

Thanks,
Chris

[green69rt]

I went with a Dakota Digital dash for a lot of reasons.

The good:

All digital gauges with LED lighting (they look analog just run off of a digital signal.)
No VR. everything built in.
No ammeter to burn up, voltmeter.
Custom calibration for the fuel gauge, so the issue of finding a correct fuel tank sender goes away.
Custom calibration for the speedo so trying to find the right speedo pinion is not an issue.  Change tire sizes, just recal the speedo.
Build in Tach so no aftermarket thing strapped to the column (or wherever.)
A lot of options for messages, etc. that you may or may not use.
Got rid of a bunch of the under dash wiring.

Bad things:

Not stock so if you need 100% correct you need to rebuild a stock set.
Uses it's own temp, oil press and speedo senders and wiring so you have to rewire.
No repairs possible, if it breaks you have to pull the whole unit and send it back to DD.
Does not replace all the switches on the dash.
Does not have on-the-go dimming dash panel lights, setting the brightness takes a configuration change unless you buy some special parts.

Edit: I also did some rewiring so that there is no charging current going through the bulkhead connector,  The wire through the bulkhead connector only supplies the current used to run the headlights, dash, tail lights and the stereo.  Soon as I can, I will be installing a headlight relay system so the headlight current will not go thru that connector.

[misty440]

Wow those look pretty cool especially how they fit into the original dash. What about mounting Auto Meter gauges into the original dash locations with their own sending units? Will this be cheaper and manageable? I found Nacho's thread about the Ammeter wiring being the cause of the fire hazard. I imagine that there must be a way to convert the Ammeter to a volt meter right? Looking for reliability when cruising around with the family as I seem to only get stranded when I am with them and that bad luck is tarnishing them wanting to go for rides in the Charger. 

Thanks,
Chris

[Jonas_N]

when I purchased the car the wiring was a mess and some of it had melted.

This was exactly like my car, plus non working gauges.
After some smoke coming from behind the dash I decided to remove every old wire from the entire car plus do the bulk-head connector bypass with thicker cables for the am-meter.

I did choose to stay with the am-meter though and bought a OER one.
I did read somewhere that the OER one could handle more amps than the old stock one, though I cant confirm this? Maybe it was just sales talk....
(Though if you compare the new one to the old one, the new one is beefier right behind the needle.)

I got all new gauges and a tach without clock. I found a silver chrysler star pin on ebay that fits perfectly in the clock adjustment knob hole.
I cleaned and painted the gauge housing, soldered all the pins on the pcb and also glued a piece of rubber between the housing and pins of the pcb, to protect against a short if the pins would come loose.
I went with a electronic volt limiter and Led lights.
Right now I have installed the restored gauge cluster with a new dash harness from YO, tested the gauges and also added extra ground for the housing,limiter etc.

I was close in going the same route as green69rt did, those custom calibration gauges would save me a ton of headaches.
But then I red nachos wiring sticky and thought it would be a challenge.


So yeah, up to you what path you choose, but either way, removing old wiring is always a good thing. 

[Kern Dog]

That does look nice, Jonas.

I was faced with this same choice. I went with Dakota Digital as well.
I made a mistake when I set the odometer. Instead of 43054 miles, I set it to 430540 as if the car had 400,000 miles! The miles are not stored in the odometer, they are stored in the VHX control box/brain.
I sent the "brain" back to DD and they had it fixed and returned in about 10 days.
I love the look of these gauges. Originality didn't matter to me on this.

[Nacho-RT74]

I'm allways toward to stock look. I think is great to get the WOW factor on a car with everything factory still in working order. Lot of ppl could think that isn't even posible on these days. I have my cars still working on each buzzer, bulb, sensor ( I think nothing on my car is in non factory working order )... A modern look is at this moment maybe easier. But everything will depend on how do you want you car will look. From the bones, the total cost of both alternatives could be aproximatelly the same.

some considerations:

Is the car number matching and easy to restore ? o need a full restore job and is not even a matching number car ?

the first could be a good candidate for a full stock look while the second option could be nice for a resto mod job.

Jonas_N... why didn't you opted for a tic-toc-tach ?

[Jonas_N]

Jonas_N... why didn't you opted for a tic-toc-tach ?

I always cut the power at the battery after a drive, so the clock would never show the correct time and I also liked the clean look of the tach only. (My car is far from numbers matching.)

Thanks Kern!

[XH29N0G]

I love the story about the 430540.  Thanks for sharing. 

The key with the dash is getting something you like.  The brightness of the dash (as you saw) can be changed by switching to LEDs.  If you stick with original gauges, change the ammeter and regulator.  Otherwise, I think the components are likely similarly safe.

[Kern Dog]

Yeah, I did't know that this odometer had 6 digits. I was used to old cars with 5 digit odometers!

[Ghoste]

I would restore the dash AND replace with new reproduction M&H wiring harnesses myself.