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As is my custom, I have done a few things in the cab of my truck to make it more useful. First, after my initial experiences, I installed a whole complement of gauges (tachometer, oil pressure, volts and coolant temperature) to monitor the systems and hopefully give me fair warning next time before anything catastrophic. Here are my gauges:
The most recent instrument addition was a vacuum gauge, which is an interesting tuning tool, not to mention that it really can influence the way you drive. Here it is:
All of my gauges are the Equus brand, and they seem to serve me well. They don't quite have the cool-appeal of, say, AutoMeter's, but have you seen my truck? Here are the catalog pictures of all my gauges, to give you a better look:
And, since a long working day is no fun without some tunes, I snagged a Pioneer CD player (DEH-14) and four (cheap) speakers from Wal-Mart for $128. Not a bad deal considering that the deck alone normally sells for about $140 at Wal-Mart, and it is basically the same as a DEH-1400, which also sells for roughly $140. The speakers are all dual-cone, one pair of 6.5's and a pair of 6x9's. I did not use the 6x9's, but the 6.5's went in the door:
For rear speakers, I had an 8" MTX full range ported box system with piezo tweeters that is extemely efficient, and although it was meant to be used with an amp, it actually makes better use of my headunit's power than the 6x9s would. Unfortunately, it was a hatchback box that would not fit behind the seat. Luckily, I just happened to have an empty 8" truck box sitting around that I cut holes in for the tweeters and ports and voila! By the way, I actually did calculate the proper size ports, although I can not remember right now how large or long they are, or what the tuning frequency was, although it seems like it was between 45 and 50 Hz. Here are pics showing the original MTX system, the empty truck box, and the finished product:
And of course, there is my headunit, which I mounted by cutting out the dash and using Pioneer's mounting sleeve to make some brackets which bolted inside the dash. And if you think it looks crooked, it is just your eyes (I wish):
It seems like I am always either working on something at night, or looking for something in the cab (which is tough, becuase I have not yet made the dome light work), so I made a 4-D cell Maglight a permanent fixture on my dash:
I also installed a 100 mph speedo in place of the factory 85 mph one, because who wants an 85 mph speedo? Here it is:
Check out my new seatcover:
email-> ben@wantlandracing.com
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