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Recently the electric temp. gauge on my suburban went out, so now I am replacing it with a mechanical. I've got and A-pillar gauge pod left over from my FJ 60 days, and it fits quite nicely on my suburban's pillar. Before I go tearing into the dash and such to route the cable, I am wondering if anyone has a suggestion on what needs to be removed (dash pad, etc) and what can stay in place. Time is precious these days and I would like to get this project started on the right track.
Thanks.
You shouldn't have to remove the dash, at all. Drill the pillar, then fish the harness(es) down and under the dash. Be sure to use a grommet where the wires pass through sheet metal, or use some nylon tubing to conduit the entire route through the pillar (my preference, and it makes fishing wires easy).
Thanks. I like the conduit idea.
My steel fish tape won't go through the A-pillar. At about the angle point of the pillar, as I am pushing down toward the dash, I can feel something like soft rubber or foam. From the outside where the pillar, fender, and hood meet, I can see through the body lines a foam rubber plug of sorts. Could this be the same foam that is in the pillar?
I stopped short of running a flexible drill bit down the pillar to ream a hole and chew up whatever is in there. Thought I'd better find out if I would be destroying anything important.
Hopefully I can make this work, it has potential to be a nice install.
Thanks.
Drilling through the obstruction in the pillar did not work. Don't know what it is-there were no pieces stuck to the drill bits. Had to pull the dash pad, which wasn't too bad.
Not sure what you are running into there. If there is a foam dam (sound insulation), you should be able to push past it against the pillar metal. Have you tried from the bottom-up?
Tried from the bottom up too. Oh well, the under the dash pad route worked fine.