Homemade Dash

snidely whiplash

New member
Sep 29, 2019
19
7
3
New Braunfels Texas
Hi, I'm a long time listener, first time caller.
Wondering what kind of reactions I might get for my homemade dash.
Feel free to bash my concept and ideas but please refrain from hammering me for my craftsmanship. I'm aware I lack some crucial skills in that department. This is my first iteration, it is not finished, and I'm not completely happy with it so I hope to improve from this starting point. I had an especially difficult time with the faceplates.
This is a 1976 Eleganza II.
20220816_135546.webp
 
Snidely,

Welcome to the group, family, cult, asylum.....

The effort is great and I like the bar graphs for speed and rev. I am hoping that the tank selector is behind the steering wheel. The 5500 on a 455 is a lot unless it has been balanced as a assembly. I would have added vacuum and lube oil temperature in the stack. I happen to like analog instrument for most service because most often the number is unimportant, but the change is and I used to be able to log the reading of a 100 psi gauge to within a single pound from the other side of an engine room. When flying, one does occasional visual sweeps of the panel to see if any thing has changed, one does not have time to look at numbers so you record in your brain the position of the instrument pointers. I hope you built a feature into the works so limits or rate of change will raise an alarm. But, that is me and I have been taking care of other peoples engines for a very long time so I have so strange habits that serve me well.

The fact that you have readouts for the rear airspring pressures is interesting, I hope you realize that what you see there is backwards in that if the pressure decreases, the very last thing you want to do is increase it to where it was. That pressure will decrease with load changes gets reduced (like fuel use in my coach) or increase when someone walks all the way to the rear while underway. My coach is lighter than most and the 300lbs of fuel that I have in the tanks can change things.

We usually show real names here for two very good reasons:
One is that it makes it much less awkward when we meet in person. (Oh, so you are Xyz?)
The other is that we like to know who we are helping, this is more rewarding.
If you go to the top right of the page and click on the S in a meatball, one of the things you will get access to says "Signature". If in that box you put a name you like to be called and will be recognized along with a short about the coach (like 76 ELeganza with a glass cockpit.....) any person offering advice will have a good starting point, and lastly a geographic reference because you probably have some wonderful old friends that you need to meet that are in striking range right now.

I really normally include a real welcome at this point, but as I only have the name of the villain character from Rocky the Flying Squirrel, I will forgo that at this time.

Matt
 
  • Like
Reactions: snidely whiplash
Snidely,

Welcome to the group, family, cult, asylum.....

The effort is great and I like the bar graphs for speed and rev. I am hoping that the tank selector is behind the steering wheel. The 5500 on a 455 is a lot unless it has been balanced as a assembly. I would have added vacuum and lube oil temperature in the stack. I happen to like analog instrument for most service because most often the number is unimportant, but the change is and I used to be able to log the reading of a 100 psi gauge to within a single pound from the other side of an engine room. When flying, one does occasional visual sweeps of the panel to see if any thing has changed, one does not have time to look at numbers so you record in your brain the position of the instrument pointers. I hope you built a feature into the works so limits or rate of change will raise an alarm. But, that is me and I have been taking care of other peoples engines for a very long time so I have so strange habits that serve me well.

The fact that you have readouts for the rear airspring pressures is interesting, I hope you realize that what you see there is backwards in that if the pressure decreases, the very last thing you want to do is increase it to where it was. That pressure will decrease with load changes gets reduced (like fuel use in my coach) or increase when someone walks all the way to the rear while underway. My coach is lighter than most and the 300lbs of fuel that I have in the tanks can change things.

We usually show real names here for two very good reasons:
One is that it makes it much less awkward when we meet in person. (Oh, so you are Xyz?)
The other is that we like to know who we are helping, this is more rewarding.
If you go to the top right of the page and click on the S in a meatball, one of the things you will get access to says "Signature". If in that box you put a name you like to be called and will be recognized along with a short about the coach (like 76 ELeganza with a glass cockpit.....) any person offering advice will have a good starting point, and lastly a geographic reference because you probably have some wonderful old friends that you need to meet that are in striking range right now.

I really normally include a real welcome at this point, but as I only have the name of the villain character from Rocky the Flying Squirrel, I will forgo that at this time.

Matt
Thanks for the input Matt.

I had the instrument cluster in a box for over 20 years with the intention of using it on a different project. I didn't like the woefully inadequate and inoperable stock set up in the GMC and money was tight so I used what I had. I know there are other ways of doing it, but one of my motivating factors was to be able to see the speedometer without leaning forward in my seat. Also the stock dash was cracked and ugly.

I put this set up together and on my first cross country trip with it, 3 years ago, I burned up my transmission and broke my hip in the same weekend. This dampened my interest a bit.
Anyway, I'm finally motivated to start tackling it again.

The 5500 RPM redline is factory set and is programmable but I haven't yet bothered with it because I don't really need a prescribed limit to tell me if I'm punishing my engine or not. I don't have a need or desire to push this thing beyond 3300 RPMs.

My on board air set up is far from stock and probably different than what you may have seen on other coaches. It's a constant experiment but so far has worked well.

Being a rotorcraft pilot, I certainly understand your appreciation for analog read-outs, but if I ever get this coach airborne the gauges are going to be the last thing on my mind.

Regards,
Tony
 
Tony,
Your Dakota Digital Dash looks great! We have a much older version of the dash (1994). How many cameras are you running for that screen,? it looks like three? Very nice. Here is a pic of our dash.

Safe Travels,
Russell
Dash.webp
 
  • Like
Reactions: snidely whiplash
Tony,
Your Dakota Digital Dash looks great! We have a much older version of the dash (1994). How many cameras are you running for that screen,? it looks like three? Very nice. Here is a pic of our dash.

Safe Travels,
Russell
View attachment 6961
That looks great. I like the Olds wheel.
I've got 4 cameras hooked up. the one not showing on the screen is the forward facing camera mounted in the grill. I usually use that one as a security camera when I'm parked with the curtains drawn.