Voltmeter add-in?

[Bebop Man]

I did the 3G alt upgrade a few weeks back, and that went great. But the factory ammeter in the dash stops working.

Can I make the ammeter work with the 3g alt? Or should I just go with a voltmeter?

Which leads me to my next question...

If I need to switch to a voltmeter, I'd like to put it in the stock location. Does anyone know of a voltmeter that will fit there? I thought I read somewhere that the later Broncos dropped the ammeter in favor of the voltmeter.

I just want to avoid having a knee-knocker gauge, and an A-pillar mount won't work due to future upgrades coming (roll cage)

 

[Bebop Man]

So I picked up one of these at my local O'Reilly's, it was like $17.00



I took out the stock cluster, cleaned off the dust and gunk, then took out the ammeter



I cut out the circuit trace relating to the ammeter, freeing up space to put in the voltmeter



I painted the housing of the new voltmeter to blend in with the stock gauges



Marking where to make the cutouts



After cutting out the back



Looks good. I printed out a black sheet on some photo paper to blend the round edges of the new voltmeter in the stock cluster



The wiring setup. The light at the top i'll wire into the rest of the dash lights, and at the bottom black goes to chassis ground, and the red will go to my fuse panel on a circuit that's hot only when the ignition is in RUN. Plus some hot glue to fix everything in place. Pretty solid, too.



All put back together. The key is in RUN, engine is off.



With the engine running. 14v with that 165amp 3g alternator. But when I flip on all the lights, and the winch, it drops back to 12v. Pretty good in my book

 

[miesk5]

yo Bebop Man,

Great job!

Thanks for posting it.

 

[DNBELOWBRONCO]

That fits your dash cluster nicely and I don't care for the lower add-on gauges either. They tend to hit knees or seats break them off plus they just look too cluttered. I like the way you incorporated the gauge and blended it in so unless you really look you'd never know it's been replaced. I'm the kind of person that doesn't run shock boots and all my poly bushings are black to look stock and blend in too. The performance is there but the flash factor has been removed more of a sleeper than a show-off rig. Great work Bebop man! > -Kevin-

 

[Rons beast]

WOW! looks great! great pics and step-by-step too.

Thanks Man.