T - tap connectors

T - tap connectors

Now this is just for illustration purposes. I took one of these connectors that makes the connections to the back of the gage cluster out of my parts car so you can see that this is what I was talking about in my last post as one possibility of tapping directly into the wires. My other thought is to just solder wires directly to where you need to make your connections on the copper prongs and slip over some heat shrink tubing and label each wire accordingly. Not yet sure which route I am going to take but this is certainly some ideas to play with.

Dash Cutting

Working on cutting out the dash plastic. I did some delicate cutting out around the area I had marked out and found I needed to cut a little more. I gained a little more wire slack on that lower white dash cluster connector, not much but a little. I'm going to experiment a little on the connectors pulled from the parts car and see if I can devise a crafty way of connecting directly to the copper tabs on those connectors. I have a few ideas, one of which is to make a special "Long Spade" style connector using some stock copper that I can cut and attach a ring connector to and then cover that with a wire cover something similar to heat shrink tubing. If my plan works ands the connections are solid enough, by that I mean able to withstand any shock the car will naturally be succumbed to during and kind of driving, then I may go with that method. My other option is to cap off any wires that are not needed and just butt connect longer wires that I will label and connect to a 20 pin Male / Female connector to the dash electronics.... we'll see. ;)

Dash Connectors Install Plan

I think I have a route chosen for how I want to do my dash install. I've been humming and hawing a great deal on what would be the best way to do this. Now I know a lot of folks simply make their connections right to the back of the dash gage cluster which is fine, but to me seems a bit of a waste, I mean why have the dash cluster there at all if all you are using is just the circuit pathways?? Why not just identify the coloured wires that you nee to tap into and not use the gage cluster at all if you don't need to?? I know it can be done, I saw a video on YouTube where it looks like they are pretty much doing just that.

You can see in the above video that they clearly do not use the gage cluster at all which to me seems like a more cleaner and professional dash install.

By examining the wires at the connectors it seems to me that one should be able to determine where each wire is going on the back of the gage cluster by following the circuit pathways and using it's colour code.

My thought is to either cut off these connectors or just use T-Taps and patch a wire right into each wire needed. my other thought is to butt connect additional colour coded wires to each wire once the connectors have been snipped off at the wires. If I do that I will need greater access to the wires on the white lower connector, that sucker is in there tighter than a Nun's Bible lol

So I'm thinking what I might end up needing to do is make a cutout in the dash plastic to pull the wires out of the dash a little more in order to make my butt connections for adding additional wire and giving them more length for connection to the dash via a 20 pin male / female connector.

I have an idea of where I will make my cutout to gain access to the wire a little more seen here in my photo showing my red dotted lines for my intended cutting.  Seeing how the top part of the dash may need to be trimmed a little anyways depending on if it interferes with the electronics on the back of my 2 TV Dash. I see that some people have needed to trim the top of their dash depending on how "Beefy" the back of their electronics install is. So what's a few more cuts in the plastic I figure. My only other option is to take the dash out and lengthen the wires to the connectors and then reinstall the dash plastic which is a real pain in the backside, I've taken out that whole assembly on the parts car so I know how much of a pain it is, much easier to just make a simple cut in the plastic and pull the wires through, strip off the ends and butt connect longer wires to the ends. I'll keep the connectors so I can doubly make sure of which wires went where.