Discussion
Hey guys,
I'm looking to replace the guages in my 95 S4s since all of them except the speedo and tach have had the faces crack and fall off and the accuracy of the readings is suspect to say the least.
I can't decide whether to replace with analog guages to preserve the look or go ahead and bite the bullet and go digital.
Has anyone upgraded their guages and did you have any difficulty matching up fuel, temp, oil pressure senders, etc.?
Any help is appreciated.
Jim
I'm looking to replace the guages in my 95 S4s since all of them except the speedo and tach have had the faces crack and fall off and the accuracy of the readings is suspect to say the least.
I can't decide whether to replace with analog guages to preserve the look or go ahead and bite the bullet and go digital.
Has anyone upgraded their guages and did you have any difficulty matching up fuel, temp, oil pressure senders, etc.?
Any help is appreciated.
Jim
I spoke to Steve at www.sjsportscars.co.uk about this when my S4s speedo packed up.
He said as the speedo is electrical it can't be changed easily if at all
Cheers,
John W
'95 S4s
He said as the speedo is electrical it can't be changed easily if at all
Cheers,
John W
'95 S4s
I've got this on my long term list of things to do. I've bought a cheap oil pressure gauge to fit a some point, just to see how to do it.
The guy to talk to is Mark Mckensie, who's replaced his rev counter with a SPA one. He's Esprit is on my owners section.
www.lotusespritworld.com/EOwners/McKenzie.html
Keep a record of what you do, as this will be useful for other owners. Hope this is helpful.
kato
Lotus Esprit World
The guy to talk to is Mark Mckensie, who's replaced his rev counter with a SPA one. He's Esprit is on my owners section.
www.lotusespritworld.com/EOwners/McKenzie.html
Keep a record of what you do, as this will be useful for other owners. Hope this is helpful.
kato
Lotus Esprit World
JK1 said:
Hey guys,
I'm looking to replace the guages in my 95 S4s since all of them except the speedo and tach have had the faces crack and fall off and the accuracy of the readings is suspect to say the least.
I can't decide whether to replace with analog guages to preserve the look or go ahead and bite the bullet and go digital.
Has anyone upgraded their guages and did you have any difficulty matching up fuel, temp, oil pressure senders, etc.?
Any help is appreciated.
Jim
How in the world do the faces crack and fall off?
Calvin
"The gauges in the S4s are the cheapest, crappiest gauges Lotus could get away with. The body of the gauge is made of plastic that just falls apart with the face falling into your lap & the body falling back into the binnacle. jonwat"
Calvin,
That's exactly what happens. It appears that the plastic housing ages to the point that it becomes brittle and cracks all the way around the guage behind the bezel, probably from vibration and the mounting brackets pulling on the face from behind.
I epoxied them back together and they still work, sometimes.
I also inadvertently moved the needle on the boost guage and fuel guage before I glued the faces back on and now I get 1.5 bar boost.
The gas guage reads 1/4 tank when it's empty. Don't ask how I know that.
The oil pressure guage always reads low, sometimes in the red and I know it can't be right since the engine would have blown up by now with the way I drive.
The minute hand on the clock occasionally gets hung up on the time setting stem and will stop for an hour or two until it finally breaks free.
The speedo works ok although it's off 5-10mph at higher speeds. The tach works fine but I have no way to check to see how accurate it is.
This stuff really irks me since I want the car to be as perfect as possible, so hence the replacement.
Thanks for the responses guys.
Anybody else? Someone has to have been through this before.
Jim Knowles
Calvin,
That's exactly what happens. It appears that the plastic housing ages to the point that it becomes brittle and cracks all the way around the guage behind the bezel, probably from vibration and the mounting brackets pulling on the face from behind.
I epoxied them back together and they still work, sometimes.
I also inadvertently moved the needle on the boost guage and fuel guage before I glued the faces back on and now I get 1.5 bar boost.
The gas guage reads 1/4 tank when it's empty. Don't ask how I know that.
The oil pressure guage always reads low, sometimes in the red and I know it can't be right since the engine would have blown up by now with the way I drive.
The minute hand on the clock occasionally gets hung up on the time setting stem and will stop for an hour or two until it finally breaks free.
The speedo works ok although it's off 5-10mph at higher speeds. The tach works fine but I have no way to check to see how accurate it is.
This stuff really irks me since I want the car to be as perfect as possible, so hence the replacement.
Thanks for the responses guys.
Anybody else? Someone has to have been through this before.
Jim Knowles
Was looking at replacing all of the Gauges in my S4s for ery similar reasons, and have decided on the Spa gauges primarily due to them being Dual units, so twice as much monitored.
I'm a bit gauge obsessed I think.
For the tacho and speeedo I was looking at nordskog www.intellitronix.com/index.html digital units.
Not sure how they will look overall but should work as they are digital like the existing speedo.
If anyone has changed gauges before would like to hear if they changed all senders at same time or got them to work with originals ?
Derrick
S4s
I'm a bit gauge obsessed I think.
For the tacho and speeedo I was looking at nordskog www.intellitronix.com/index.html digital units.
Not sure how they will look overall but should work as they are digital like the existing speedo.
If anyone has changed gauges before would like to hear if they changed all senders at same time or got them to work with originals ?
Derrick
S4s
Del-Esprit said:
If anyone has changed gauges before would like to hear if they changed all senders at same time or got them to work with originals ?
I changed all of my small gauges to VDO Vision, and they work fine with the existing senders. Two of the three wires in the plug which connects to the back of each gauge had to be reversed, for some reason VDO switched the 12V and sender wires.
Cheers,
Sanj
For any who are interested, I have decided to go with the Nordskog digital guages. www.nordskogperformance.net/
I was able to determine that the water temp sensor is a standard 1/8" npt fitting so I'm proceeding under the assumption that the others won't be too difficult to match up.
At this point I'm going to leave the existing tach and speedo since fitting those will require reworking the dash face which I will probably do later.
I did order one of their 2 1/16" digital speedo's and will use the hole between the speedo and tach for a second speed readout just to see if I can get it to work before modifying the dash. The clock will be eliminated for now.
The new guages will be in next week and I'll try to document the changeover.
Wish me luck since I'm sure I'll need it. My motto is "nothing's ever simple" especially when it comes to the Esprit.
Jim
>> Edited by JK1 on Friday 15th August 15:59
I was able to determine that the water temp sensor is a standard 1/8" npt fitting so I'm proceeding under the assumption that the others won't be too difficult to match up.
At this point I'm going to leave the existing tach and speedo since fitting those will require reworking the dash face which I will probably do later.
I did order one of their 2 1/16" digital speedo's and will use the hole between the speedo and tach for a second speed readout just to see if I can get it to work before modifying the dash. The clock will be eliminated for now.
The new guages will be in next week and I'll try to document the changeover.
Wish me luck since I'm sure I'll need it. My motto is "nothing's ever simple" especially when it comes to the Esprit.
Jim
>> Edited by JK1 on Friday 15th August 15:59
I saw these people at Sturgis:
www.dakotadigital.com/
They have some nice stuff and it is all designed to be compatible with everything. For instance, they will make you a digital speedometer/odometer pre-set to whatever you last odometer was and to calibrate it, you drive down the highway and push a button at a mile marker, then push again at the next mile marker. It will trigger off any pulse and they have an adapter for the end of a cable if you have a cable operated speedo.
Dr.Hess
www.dakotadigital.com/
They have some nice stuff and it is all designed to be compatible with everything. For instance, they will make you a digital speedometer/odometer pre-set to whatever you last odometer was and to calibrate it, you drive down the highway and push a button at a mile marker, then push again at the next mile marker. It will trigger off any pulse and they have an adapter for the end of a cable if you have a cable operated speedo.
Dr.Hess
Jim, nice to see people taking a step toward the unknown and letting others know.
For myself I like the Spa Design gauges becasue they are Dual digital, allowing me to monitor twice as many things. May think about the Nordskog and forgo extra values or make more space ?
Except the fuel level gauge, can't find a solution to that at the moment, was thinking of puting a volt meter to show resitance or equivelant ?
For myself I like the Spa Design gauges becasue they are Dual digital, allowing me to monitor twice as many things. May think about the Nordskog and forgo extra values or make more space ?
Except the fuel level gauge, can't find a solution to that at the moment, was thinking of puting a volt meter to show resitance or equivelant ?
Del,
I looked at SPA but couldn't get any info on their US distributor website.
According to Nordskog, their fuel guage can be calibrated to work with just about any sender. We'll see soon enough. Other than that you have to pull the existing fuel guage sender and measure the ohm range full/empty to see what it is. Thanks for the reply.
Dr.Hess,
I looked at Dakota Digital also but decided to go with Nordskog so I could keep the red display and because they have a lifetime warranty. DD does have a lot of neat stuff.
Jim
I looked at SPA but couldn't get any info on their US distributor website.
According to Nordskog, their fuel guage can be calibrated to work with just about any sender. We'll see soon enough. Other than that you have to pull the existing fuel guage sender and measure the ohm range full/empty to see what it is. Thanks for the reply.
Dr.Hess,
I looked at Dakota Digital also but decided to go with Nordskog so I could keep the red display and because they have a lifetime warranty. DD does have a lot of neat stuff.
Jim
cnh1990 said:
Hey Sanj do all the gauges crack and fall off?
I never had a problem with mine and I have a fairly old car.
Calvin
Hi Calvin,
I changed mine so that they would match the boost gauge I had already installed in place of the original. None of mine were cracked or otherwise malfunctioning, the only issue I had was the epeileptic fuel gauge needle... BTW, my gauges now read in PSI and degrees Fahrenheit, instead of Bar and deg C.
Cheers,
Sanj
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