Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Aftermarket Gauges

Aftermarket Gauges

When I have an interest in something I buy a “how-to” book. Since I’m working on my S-10/Studebaker project and I am doing electrical work I bought a Haynes manual on the S-10 and their generic wiring manual.

In the wiring manual they discuss installing aftermarket gauges and I read that chapter with interest and like so many of these publications it fell short of telling me what I needed to know.

Do other people read this stuff like I do and discover that you get told everything but what you need to know? These Haynes manuals are chock full of information I could care less about and one would think they would be geared to the remedial reader… given that experienced mechanics are not going to be buying one technical manuals given that they already know most of this stuff. It’s like a Catch 22. A “How To” manual has to be written by an expert but an expert already knows all this and makes huge assumption about matters that are self evident after years of experience in the field.

For example the Book on the S-10 tells the reader how to use plastic-gauge to determine bearing clearance in rebuilding an engine. Now let me ask, how many novice automotive readers are going to be scratch rebuilding a worn out engine. Not many yet the manual goes on and on about doing a rebuild. Students spend two years in technical school learning to do that and they still only scratch the surface… So what should these publications focus on.

Most shade-tree mechanics install after market gauges at one time or the other and yes there is a chapter on that. In this chapter the writer talks exclusively about electrical after market gauges. No mention is made of mechanical gauges and there are an abundance to these hanging in the parts stores. Here’s the problem… If you buy mechanical gauges and use the engine ports to install them you have to remove the sending units that have wires coming out of them. If you do this then the information they are sending to the ECM computer is no longer sent and by the way that computer uses the data to make adjustments to fuel injection and a host of other functions in newer cars.

So one would think that the explanation would start with words that explain the difference between mechanical and electrical gauges and the dangers of stealing a port dedicated to the ECM by substituting an older style gauge sender. Next would come finding a port for a mechanical gauge, followed by a discussion of electrical gauges and how they can be used to supplement the ECM gauges.

Now this type of logic is lost on experts who assume way too much and wind up wasting the space in a how too manual for processes that are light years beyond what the novice mechanic is ever likely to try on their own.

Having gotten this off my chest I feel much better and apologize to my readers who couldn’t give a Rat’s Petotti about after market gauges and automotive How to manuals