1986 B2000 2.5 T Diesel FOR SALE $750obo

Decided to start working on the pillar gauge pods tonight. I have very little experience working with fiberglass resin to start out with, so I have a feeling that I am going to be making a lot of mistakes by the time that i am finished here.

Here is what I started with:


and the gauge pod. Notice how it's not 100% even after my heat gun attempt.


and here is how it sits as of now. I'm also in the process of fixing a crack that developed where my tweeter speaker originally was, I don't know if I'm going to be putting them back there to be honest or not.


Checked it out an hour later. Some of the resin was still a bit tacky but the cloth was all hard. Going to sand hopefully tomorrow after the fireworks

Oh, don't worry guys, I did sand the pillar and pods down before applying resin.

here is an update. I am moving along slowly with this, I have a lot going on including my graduation from college in 8 weeks :cheers:

Milkshake to fill in some of the gaps on the top, I like this technique, it's easier to work with plus it filled some of the gaps in on the inside.



more to come. Plan to sand it down some tonight and do another body fill pass with it, should be done within a week or so. I still need to straighten it out a bit as it warped from heat in relation to the initial fiberglass coat.

Well how is this for s**t..... I just realized that my EGT gauge was considerably longer than my boost gauge, in stock form my gauge pod won't even house this gauge correctly. What do I do? Since I'm glassing this thing anyways, I make an extension.

I used the technique outlined in an article that I found here: How-To: custom fiberglass pillar gauge pods - evolutionm.net

One small bead of superglue on a piece of 2" PVC, a sheet of fleece and a soak in resin, and a milkshake to fill the void, and voila!

did some more work on the gauge pods today. I'm rather proud of how it is shaping up, going to need less bondo than I thought

The repair patch on the crack:


the top side: filled with some resin, some of the milkshake from the patch is in the holes as well for a secure hold.


top view of the EGT gauge port:


Side views:




note to self, fix the f***ed up pic

Hey Emjay plastic and fiberglass really don't bond well so it will work for awhile but for a permanent fix you will be better off if you apply a layer of fiberglass over the whole interior piece.

I thought that I did? or do you mean something more on the inside of the piece? I also have 2 screws holding the original plastic gauge pod down, and made a couple holes and filled with resin to make an anchor. Would that work well or would I be better off drilling some more holes and making more bolt anchors?

I meant like that entire interior panel lol

oh, lol. Yeah, I don't think that I'd be able to do that. The way that the piece fastens to the cab i can't have any fiberglass on the back side of the piece on the portion that runs along the windshield as it fits over part of the cab. I'm going to have to route the line for my EGT and boost gauge within the frame there (it'll be easy ) I've decided to add a couple more screws and nuts along the pod portion, these will be easy to conceal and I am hoping that they will hold well. Do you have any more ideas as to what I might be able to do to get it to hold better?

The alternative is to make a mold of the pieces and make a completely fiberglass piece, and I may do that if this proves to fail on me. Failure is likely as this is my first attempt but should buy me some time and experience. My MDF sub box and center console though won't fail

Em, I just bought a gauge pillar for an S10, and bolted it on the existing interior piece.

It looks fine, and had enough room for my wideband gauge, and boost gauge.

There was a bit of a gap if you look through the windshield, but not much.

Do you have any pics of this? I'm curious to see how it looks now.