Ideas and tips for making a custom gauge pod

[roman6k2tdi]

Hey guys,

I've been reading through this awesome forum for a long time and it's clear there are many of you with impressive engineering skills and overall experience so I thought this would definitely be the best place to ask.

Such as my forum name indicates I own an Ibiza mk3 TDi Sport which has the additional oil temp and battery voltage gauges under the dashboard's head unit.

Now because I'd like to get my shifter unit raised up a bit (to have the gear stick closer to the steering wheel), the gear linkage will most probably go right through where the gauges are now. My idea is to build a custom gauge pod for 3 gauges (boost, oil temp, batt) and install it on the dashboard instead of the middle air vents. I'm well aware and completely fine with the dashboard becoming irreversibly "damaged" by this. Sure I could go the easier way and buy an A-pillar pods but I just hate that. It became too ricer style for me tbh.

Does anyone have experience of something similar being done? I'd best like having it done out of plastic but then I figured plastic might not be the best material to go down the DIY way, donno really. A friend of mine suggested fiberglass, but I just started to hate that material a long time ago because of all those superfugly fiberglass bumpers/fenders etc. which we can unfortunately still see on some cars.

Guess I should stress I'd like to do this myself because in my country full of hillbillies (Czech Republic) there aren't many people who do a top notch job for you even though it's always rather expensive. Plus I like challenge and even if the outcome wasn't good enough for me I'd take the experience and try again or -in the worst case scenario- get it done by someone else.

Sorry for the wall of text (I prefer expressing properly to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings) and possible grammar mistakes.

Thanks for all constructive feedback and hopefully this thread will become at least an inspiration to some others or a complete guide at best.

Roman

 

[ibiza_95]

best thing to use is fibreglass paste... dont try make something from scratch because it wont be perfect unfortunately, but try mould 2 things together...

I made an Apillar pod for my ibiza and used the standard trim, and a 2 gauage pod and blended them together... the paste stuff is awesome because its light, strong, and bridges and sticks so perfect for what you want... ill see if i can dig up a pic of what i made...

 

[ibiza_95]

That was made by combining these two items:

 

[kyle'87]

Im sure that someone 'flipped' thier gear stick mount upside down so it raised the console up.

not 100% sure of the process but it can be done.

the best way to do gauge pods is (In my opinion) create the structure using MDF then with some cloth or old t-shirt is what me and my mate have used stretch it over the structure and pin it down. then mix up some resin and soak the material in it and leave to set.

once set use filler to get a smooth finish and then prime and paint.

^ A VERY rough guide to how me and my mate did some tweeter builds.

 

[roman6k2tdi]

Thanks for the quick replies!

@Ibiza95: doing it from scratch is what I'm most likely going to do because I doubt there's anything on the market even remotely similar to what I want. In your case it ended up great and you sure did a great job but as I said I don't like the A-pillar pods and any other pod would in my opinion be rather impossible to adjust and fit the place where I wanna have it. (Considering the pods I've seen for sale. There also aren't exactly many of them.)

@Kyle: I like your suggestion mate. I've consulted it today with a friend of mine who is very experienced and skilled car mechanic and he said fiberglass would be the best option so I changed my mind about it. Although I think there might be a material that's easier to shape than MDF. I'll figure it out Anyway, you sent me a good direction and I thank you for it

Now about the flipped gear stick mount.. I've seen that too. Good thing about it is that the linkage can most prolly stay in the tunnel. The bad thing is that the height is limited and I'd like to go higher with it. A friend of mine did it in his racing Golf mk2 by welding steel sticks to the tunnel and mounting the gear stick unit on top of them. A functional solution but hideous (which didnt really matter in a race car). I was thinking I could get some nice aluminium structure machined and sit the unit on top of it.

Wanted to upload a simple picture I made in windows paint to show you exactly what's on my mind. Need 15 posts for that though

 

[Tucker157]

look for berg's build thread... he's mounted his shifter box above the tunnell....looks awsome.

 

[roman6k2tdi]

look for berg's build thread... he's mounted his shifter box above the tunnell....looks awsome.

Just did and it really does look awesome! And definitely looks simpler than what I had first on mind. I'll for sure go first with this adjustment as I'm guessing the shifter's gonna be high enough to my liking Thanks mate