I have an older CMC (1984) build and eventually want to change the gauges and steering wheel. I know I want the gauges to be VDO and have heard about other gauges made in Brazil. Also what steering wheel would you go with ?
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Carey Hines @chines1 at Beck Speedsters has worked with VDO on some higher quality 356 gauges that have eliminated a lot of the problems we've had with the Asian knock-offs, like the easily broken trip odometer, tach bouncing and so forth - they even drive the speedometer via GPS signal, eliminating the speedo being off due to tire size.
I haven't seen Brazilian VDO versions in quite a few years, but they were slightly better quality than the Asian versions if you can find them.
Carey's may be more expensive than the Asian versions, but the cheaper ones have never been improved and you may eventually have to get them fixed when they break so it's a Pay once, Cry once situation with the better instruments.
On the steering wheel, you can never go wrong with a Nardi spoked wheel.
I swapped mine to VDO's Cockpit line a couple of years ago. I chose the product to avoid glassing in the dash and drilling fresh holes. The CMC gauges are a bit larger and have bigger bezels, so I found some O rings to help them fit tightly. You can find every size of O-ring imaginable on eBay.
You'll have to change all of the senders as well. VDO makes an oil temperature sender which replaces one of the bypass valve covers in the oil sump.
I had difficulty with the oil pressure sender. I bought the metric one for an air-cooled VW, it fit loosely. I think this is because the CMC sender was standard, and someone had drilled and tapped the port. I used a bit of JB Weld as a sealant. It hasn't leaked, knock on wood.
My CMC fuel gauge was wonky, so I ordered a new stock VW 73-10 Ω sender, and a gauge with the corresponding range. It works well, but you'll want to add a 22 kΩ resistor in series with a 200 µf electrolytic capacitor between the sender output and ground to damp the needle from responding to every slosh of fuel.
The new speedometers are electronic. VDO sells a cable driven sender, but I chose their GPS sender. It's dead-nuts accurate, and completely independent of tire size.
@Gordon Nichols posted:Carey Hines @chines1 at Beck Speedsters has worked with VDO on some higher quality 356 gauges that have eliminated a lot of the problems we've had with the Asian knock-offs, like the easily broken trip odometer, tach bouncing and so forth - they even drive the speedometer via GPS signal, eliminating the speedo being off due to tire size.
I haven't seen Brazilian VDO versions in quite a few years, but they were slightly better quality than the Asian versions if you can find them.
Carey's may be more expensive than the Asian versions, but the cheaper ones have never been improved and you may eventually have to get them fixed when they break so it's a Pay once, Cry once situation with the better instruments.
On the steering wheel, you can never go wrong with a Nardi spoked wheel.
If you get the gauges from Carey you can also get bezel adapters and senders so everything fits well.
What I don't know is how big the CMC gauges are in comparison to the knock-offs Kirk used. The adapters Carey supplies make his gauges fit perfectly in the holes made by Kirk in the Vintage Speedster built cars.
