Okay James caught me completely off guard.. I did in fact do a project a couple of weeks ago and I am ashamed to admit I forgot to tell you guys about it..

As you guys know I practicaly live on this forum absorbing as much as I can and trying to share what little I know.
The other day I pulled up at a light and all I could smell was sulpher, I immediately thought oh no my regulator is boiling my battery and I will fry the alternaor along with other things. I pulled into the very next gas station to pull over and check the battery and the guy in front pulls up in his ricer , probably with a hollowed out cat . and his car stunk of sulpher. Okay maybe I am getting a little paranoid... So I made like I was rearranging something in the cargo hold and sauntered back into my car .. but in that instant another project was born.

I am a purist in every way but this one I just had to bend on. I re installed my voltmeter I took out a while ago. It was a simple instalation that took about ten minutes and cost about 5.00 for the voltmeter. It is very simpe and gives a lot of piece of mind. I mounted it to a stud on the back of my ashtrat with a small L bracket and it just rests on the centre console so it does not vibrate. it is well out of the way so does not look " ricerish " and a quicjk glance tells me what I need to know.
I had to rotate it sideways as I can not see the top of the guage from my seated position , and I considerd putting it in upside down.

I had a pigtail wire coming out of a fusable link right behind the ashtray ( looks like for the radio maybe. ) and I grounded the guage at the big phillips holding the radio bracket. I have wires for lights but have not done that yet.

I checked it with the voltage at my battery and they track perfectly ( well with what little resolution this guage has as oppose to my Fluke 97 )

Here are some pics.

 

Yes very easy and inexpensive to do. I attached mine on the side of the console only to cover the ugly holes were someone mounted an 80's cell phone - what were they thinking!! You can kind of see it in this pic.

 

Super Dave I actually like your location but could not bring myself to put holes in my console... :-)

 

Well my decision was an easy one but I'm like you - I would have never done that. Stupid idea to mount a phone there - thats why I liked my bag phone!

 

I suppose there is only so many gauges Porsche could have put on a car, but an ammeter or voltmeter is a great gauge to have in the car. Noticing any difference from normal can be a big headache saver.

Nice job guys!

Jay
90 964, 84 3.2

 

I mounted mine on top of my console.
You need to tilt your head, but I'm good with that.

 

Here's mine:

 

It looks weird on it's side like that, doesn't it? You don't need to look at it often on a drive, do you? Just when things are in need of diagnostics?

My PO has a little box on top of the console for a volt meter and an ampmeter, but the box is falling apart and it looks terrible. But I can't say I have ever looked down there at it while driving.

 

It does look werid on it's side , but less weird than upside down ( I'm an optimist ! ) I do find my self looking at it a lot for some reason. Could be because we have had so many alternator/regulator stories lately.

 

Ice,
This is the peace-of-mind project I need to do in the spring (the Alaska Carrera is under wraps until April 1). The gauge looks nicely VDO-ish - where did you get it? Also, never having done this before, how will I know which wire to locate and attach to it? I assume it's the one for the idiot light? What's the easiest way to get to that?
Thanks,
Dennis

 

Thanks Iceman.

I think I have an old VDO volt gauge somewhere in my stash of old VW parts.
It's black & white with the voltage numbers.

 

My mother-inlaw used to have an 89 Jaquar XJS and they mounted the cell phone to the side of the console.
Installer used screws that were too long and shorted out 1/2 the electrical equipment.

Shop had to pay close to $10,000 to get it sorted out

 

Here's mine:

 

N. Hollywood Speedo?

 

yes