Completely replacing dash, wiring guages question

[stephentyler20]

One of the [very few] enhancements I intend do this this spring is to replace my entire console (21' 1988 Wellcraft 210 Classic). The current, original style of guages/general dash is pictured below. I've never liked the look of it, it's very 80's, and feels cheap and plasticky. The fuel gauge doesn't work, the tach is on its way out (starting to stick), and the other gauges aren't specific enough to be terribly useful (hardly even numbered). It's the very last thing I envision doing to this boat during my ownership of it, feeling accomplished after redoing the entire interior (Carpet and all vinyl with new seating arrangement).

My plan is to rip out the black plastic (it's held in by a bunch of screws, no big deal), then frame out the underlying space with plywood, glass it in, paint white, and install new gauges.

There's lots of room for this to go wrong, but one of my biggest concerns is gauge wiring. I'm pretty handy electrically, but what concerns me is that I'd be going from stock wiring to a non-circular gauge, to a circular gauge.

Now, on the gauge sets I've been looking at (standard Teleflex illuminated gauges), they generally say for standard 4/6/8 cylinder inboard engines. Does that mean the wiring at the helm should be pretty straightforward to replace? Or is the wiring likely to be completely different because of the different gauge style?

If anyone has any other tips with regard to doing this project, I'd appreciate it!

Current setup:

Example of gauges I'd like to install:

 

[oops!]

Re: Completely replacing dash, wiring guages question

it will be straight forward...

each gauge works the same the looks and style dont matter.

 

[woosterken]

Re: Completely replacing dash, wiring guages question

looking at the dash as layed out now,could you put the 2 big ones (rpm,mph) to the left
(in the wide part) and put the 4 little ones spread out to the right?
as for wires, i would think the ones for the gauges you have would work ,may have to change the ends to hook to new gauges

make it like this 0 0 o o o o rather than this o o O O oo

woosterken

 

[stephentyler20]

Re: Completely replacing dash, wiring guages question

looking at the dash as layed out now,could you put the 2 big ones (rpm,mph) to the left
(in the wide part) and put the 4 little ones spread out to the right?
as for wires, i would think the ones for the gauges you have would work ,may have to change the ends to hook to new gauges

make it like this 0 0 o o o o rather than this o o O O oo

woosterken

No... Like I said, I'll be ripping out the entire station (i.e., all the black plastic stuff) and laying down ply and fiberglass to make a simple new helm. I'll install the new gauges into that, probably with some sort of backing (plexiglass, aluminum, wood... something like that) for decoration and reinforcement.

At least, that's the plan. In the next day or two I'm going to pull the dash out and see what it looks like under there. I'm pretty sure it's unfinished fiberglass, so I may just have to finish it, or else cover it up.

Also, I tracked down a wiring diagram for my engine, so I'm going to see if the wire colors match up at all behind the existing dash. If so, this should be a no brainer.