Gauges

[COPO PETE]

I have some old SW machanical gauges, but also some old electic SW gauges. Did Yenko, Motion or anyone use the eletic type. Also a side sweep Sun tack and the starz and striped " Big Daddy "10 grand tack. Were these used at all in some of the supercars or just aftermarket stuff.
Peter

[Edited by COPO PETE (01-29-2002 at 11:08 AM).]

[whitetop]

The size of the gauge determined in many cases whether it was electrical or mechanical. The 2" are mostly electrical and the 2 5/8 are mostly mechanical but not in all cases. From what I can tell Motion used mostly Sun 2 5/8 gauges but also Stewart Warner and in some of the Vega's VDO. The '74 Phase III Camaro that was featured in many of the mags had Autometer gauges in it which were introduced in June '73-Tachs came out in '70. The sun 2/58 oil gauge is mechanical and the water takes a special elctrical sender. SW came in mechanical and electric. PXTX and Ratpack know about the SW stuff. Any input from yu guys? For tachs Motion mostly used Sun Super but also cable drive units from Moroso, Jones-Motrola and Stahl & Associates. FYI all three of these cable drive tachs were made by Jones-Motrola in Joe C's stomping grounds but Jones would put in the face plate that matched the selling dealer i.e. Moroso, Stahl etc..
Not being a Yenko expert from what I can tell mostly used Stewart Warner. Not sure of Berger etc.

The RW&B Big Daddy tachs are extremly difficult to find especially with a good cup. These came out in '70. Don't know of any dealer putting these on their cars though. A NOS one sold on ebay last year for $525. I very rarely see these tachs on cars in the old mags. I think they are more a novelty today because of the Big Daddy name and the RW&B color scheme.

The type of gauge(as well as types of mods done to your car) back then depended alot of geographics. Sun stuff was extremely popular in the northeast and midwest. Stewart Warner was stronger out west. Running gauges on the steering column in chrome cups was also a northeast/midwest thing and not as popular out west. But this is another subject for another day...
Dave









[Edited by whitetop (01-29-2002 at 03:33 PM).]

[bkhpah]

From what we have learned, Harrell was a Sun tachometer man, but would use SW for the other gauges. Just his preference...BKH

[COPO PETE]

$525.00 Man, I've got two of those. Not NOS however!!!!
Peter

[whitetop]

The used ones I have seen on ebay are going around $150-200 depending if they have a cup and not to badly faded.
Dave

[PxTx]

I've checked a 1977 Motion catalog I had handy to verify this, the Motion gauges offered in the catalog were all Sun ones. No others were listed. Oil Pressure, Fuel Pressure, and Vacuum were mechanical. the Water temp, Amps and Volts were electric. Other 2" Suns were offered, but I think they were not the ones we were concerned with.

Hope that helps some.

Paul Tholey

[Rat_Pack]

Motion offered both SW and Sun gauges and he started moving away from SW by the mid 70's. The latest Motion catalog I have is a 1974 one and it shows both SW and Sun gauges available.Most of the time he used Sun gauges but it really came down to what the customer preferred.

The 69 Motion Camaro that Otis Chandler has does not have a tach but does have greenline Sun 2-5/8" gauges under the dash. However the 70 Motion Chevelle that he owns has blackface 2-5/8" SW gauges under the dash with a Stahl 9 grand cable drive tach on the steering column.

One thing though is that sometime in 69 or early 70 the greenline gauges were replaced with the blueline gauges. Dave do you know when? So a 70 and up car that had Sun gauges in them should have the blueline ones...........RatPack.....................

[PxTx]

I was not aware of the sun gauge faces being year specific. I have seen SST prior to 1968 with both blue and green faces. In 69 the blue 2 5/8" were most likely available.

My guess on the Otis car was that the Green gauges were chosen to compliment the green car. That is where the no tach problem came into play. I can only speculate this, but here goes:

I have not seen an integral SST with a green face. I would imagine that the original owner of the Otis Camaro wanted to have a tach that matched his gauges (being the car is so pretty why have a tach that clashed). When all that Joel had on the shelf at this point was blue SST- Joel most likely offered the hood mount tach as a reasonable alternative. Maybe not- but this car is definitely before Joel clearly figured out which tachs worked best with the "new" (at the time) CD ignition systems. Maybe Joel had a green SST with a transmitter, but the CD system generated too much EMI and the tach was bouncing all over.

I don't claim this to be accurate, just a reasonable speculation.

[whitetop]

Ratpack
I agree with Paul. There was no time frame to say whether the green or blue line is correct. Bluelines were phased in around late '68. The '69 Lemans Blue Nova 396 car I posted pics of last year has the green line in them. He bought the car in late '68 or very early '69. Said he was disapointed when the bluelines came out shortly after because they matched his car but he never purchased them. I would have to say most speed shops probably had green and blue lines on the shelf at the same time for a while.
Should a '70 on up Motion car have bluelines? Probably be more correct as most greenlines would have been depleted by then.
Dave

[Edited by whitetop (01-30-2002 at 09:13 AM).]

[Rat_Pack]

Dave & Paul, I am not saying that they are year specific, but when did Sun stop making the greenline gauges. Well I have talked to Tim Lopata and this is what he said:

The greenline tach was last produced in 1967 and then they came out with a blueline tach that was green backlit that used the monitor box. Then in early 68 they came out with the blueline transistorized tach. The greenline gauges were still available but once inventory was depleted only the new blueline gauges were available. By 1970 there should not have been any greenlines left.

As another side note, SW had a buy back program for obsolete gauges. They would buy them back every two years to update a speedshops inventory with the current stuff. Not sure if Sun did the same thing.


The greenlines compliment any 70 and earlier Camaro or Chevelle better as the factory gauges light up green at night. The 69 Camaro really looks great at night with the green lights...............RatPack..........