Anyone tried the Smith's gauge knockoffs from eBay?

[JohnnyB]

I'm curious if anyone has tried the Smith’s replica gauge sets that are available on eBay. The price seems to good to be true but most of the Indian vendors selling them have been around for a while and they appear to have at least a few satisfied customers. At the price I'd be tempted to buy two and have a spare set.
156865

[BEAR-AvHistory]

I'm curious if anyone has tried the Smith’s replica gauge sets that are available on eBay. The price seems to good to be true but most of the Indian vendors selling them have been around for a while and they appear to have at least a few satisfied customers. At the price I'd be tempted to buy two and have a spare set.
156865

They might be mechanical gauges not electronic. What does the full description say?

[ggunter]

They certainly are cheap enough.

[rich grsc]

So you want to buy 2 cheap sets of gauges so that when one set fails you have another to install?? :confused: :rolleyes: Thats makes no sense, why would you build to fail? You then have to get your dash apart to replace them? Thats the worst logic I've seen, put quality parts in your build, not a bunch of cr-p.

[jts359]

Are you sure the gauges you are paying 10X more for aren't made in India, A lot of English things are made there now. , Ed

[JohnnyB]

They might be mechanical gauges not electronic. What does the full description say?

These are mechanical gauges, Is that an issue if I'm replacing the donor gauges?
The description is shown below. Does anything stand out that would cause problems other than the fuel sender resistance?

Replica Smiths Gauges Kit
Dimension Details:
Clockwise Speedometer = 100 mm mechanical (mph) (100 mm hole fitment)
Clockwise Tachometer = 100 mm mechanical (100 mm hole fitment)
Temp Gauge 6 ft length with 5/8" Thread + 1/2" Bush (52 mm hole fitment )
Oil Temp Gauge 6 ft length with 5/8" Thread + 1/2" Bush (52 mm hole fitment )
Oil Pressure Gauge = Mechanical 1/8" NPT thread 100 psi (52 mm hole fitment )
Fuel Gauge = 10 ohms Empty - 180 ohms Full (52 mm hole fitment )
Volt Gauge = 8-16 v (52 mm hole fitment )
With mounting brackets and 12 v bulbs for illumination.


So you want to buy 2 cheap sets of gauges so that when one set fails you have another to install?? :confused: :rolleyes: Thats makes no sense, why would you build to fail? You then have to get your dash apart to replace them? Thats the worst logic I've seen, put quality parts in your build, not a bunch of cr-p.

Thanks for that insightful opinion Rich. Your posts always bring a little ray of sunshine to my otherwise dreary world. I’ll beg to differ with you on the logic of spending $1,300 for original Smiths gauges instead of $42 for knockoffs to replace the thirty year old donor gauges in my Mark 1.

[BEAR-AvHistory]

Electric is easy mechanical is a bit more work. That said I was just thinking about things I would look into if I was working the project.

Should work if your original gauges are mechanical although end fittings on the tubes might need to be changed at the engine end. If the originals are electronic the engine might need to have the various bosses modified to receive end of the mechanical gauges tubing. SAE to metric could be an issue. Looks like a cable tach drive, does the original distributor have a tach drive output capability?

Depending on the amount of ECU engine control if any the ECU maybe looking for signals from the electric gauges sensors to properly function.

A VDO sender is 10-180 Ohms

Ford up to 1986 - 73-10 Ohms
Ford 1987 & up - 16-158 Ohms