Most liked posts in thread: R53 Dash Vent Gauge pod

Oh!

I should mention, Shapeways (where I decided to have the part hosted for purchase) has the part costing ~$25 out of SLS black Nylon + shipping

Still in Beta, so if you buy it now, there are no guarantees if it fits or whatever, as I will be receiving my two in mid March (away on business till late march so I saved some dough and selected the longer delivery time so the pieces were ~$17 ea. )

R53 Mini Gauge Vent Pod. - Part 1 (9TNLBMVCK) by Daley_Engineering

 

It is currently targeted for the innovate gauges (62.5mm bezel OD with a 52mm body diameter), but can easily be changed for any body diameter you need. (simple dimension change)

If anyone needs the model file, I designed it in OnShape (a new web-based CAD package that is free for small and private users. - Made by a bunch of people that left solidworks. Still growing, but it is pretty good!)
- and onshape lets you share your work, so I can send it to whoever needs to customize it for their own needs.

-Brad

 

And I'm not even far from you! :lol: (Inman / Spartanburg, SC checking in!)

 

ahh, yours is a block off.

They came in!

Perfect fit for these innovate gauges!

so first a few shots as they came in the mail.
did't have to touch them up or anything, they just installed as-is.



surface detail


you could always sand and finish these, but I didn't see the point.



OD of gauge to OD of mounting ring


one of the two clips that needs to be un-done.

I unclipped these by wiggling in a small, sharpened (slighly) flat head screw driver until between the gimbal housing and the gimble mechanism until it was in just far enough to pry ever so slighly, and then eased the gimbal out of it's housing.

Did it one side at a time. Thankfully the gimbal is flexible enough to make this easy-ish (if you are careful.. if not you will crack the housing)

donor housing:


if you can get an edge of the adheesive peeled up, the foam comes off fairly mess free and pretty easily. took less than 2 minutes / gauge to clean them up.



Mount installed:


just slides and clips right in place.

gauge installed and back in the dash


side profile:


and showing the air path

 

Awesome!!!

Note:

Should the gimbal housing crack when you try to remove the factory gimbal,

The housing is made of ABS.

So instead of trying to use adheesive to glue it back together, I would suggest getting acetone and a syringe.

The acetone will actually melt the abs that it touches.

So if you sparingly wet the inner surfaces of the crack with acetone out of a syringe, you can use light pressure to melt the piece back together without loosing too much geometric accuracy.

Just be sure to let it sit for 24 hours to make sure all of the acetone evaporates off so you have a strong joint again.

Any ABS that did push out and onto the surface can usually be scrapped off pretty easily with any sort of metal tool with an edge... fork.. spoon... knife... exacto.. whatever really.

Post up some pictures, or if you have any questions!

-Brad