Custom dash
 

Can I get some info, 2 cents and advice on doing a custom dash panel? I would love to see some pictures. I am looking to flush mount my garmin 441s. I am looking to do it myself. Ay and all advice is greatly appreciated!

Charlie

Does your 280 have the flat dash or curved. Mine was curved and it's kind of tough to flush mount anything unless you make the dash hold a flat panel. Unless you really want to get crazy with a fiberglass dash.

I made mine out of simple black ABS, just to match the black dash.. But you could use any material that you want.

http://i1087.photobucket.com/albums/...80/280Dash.jpg

Nightlife that looks good! Mine is the same exact one. I was afraid of the curve like you mentioned... I am gonna try though, I have no where else to put it.

That doesn't look like a huge curve if you want to flush mount a gps just get one of those billet or plastic Trim pieces and grind the backside to match your radius. Here's mine all mocked up. Crappy pics photobucket ruins the quality

Huge fan of the carbon fiber. Is that a vinyl or the real deal. It looks awesome with the polished lips on the gauges!

It's real but it's a veneer. I found a company that makes a 1/16 thick veneer www.dragonplate.com that pic doesn't do it justice.

Looks good.
I did my cracked switch panel out of the same material last year. Going to do the new dash the same in spring.

Nightlife, how did you cut your dash on the top? I wanna have the right tools to get the curve nice.

Looks good man, I re did my whole one as well. sure is alot of wires.

You could always do a graphics wrap to match the graphics on the boat. Here is my current dash and the graphics wrap I am doing to match the wrap on the boat

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...b/8702a69d.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...b/new-dash.jpg

My boat has a lot of gauges. 2 tachs speedo engine sync depth 2 oil, water temp, volt, trim, hour meters, one clock and fuel gauge. 17 total! I definitely don't need all these. I was going to get the tachs with the built in hour meters. Does anyone run a sync gauge? I haven't heard too much about this. I like it but would love to just hook it up to a dash light to saw room. Any thoughts? I will attach a photo from my photo bucket.

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...64184515_o.jpg

<a href="http://s282.beta.photobucket.com/user/chazfehn/media/Baja%20Sport%20280/774403_10151234977128603_1564184515_o.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk254/chazfehn/Baja%20Sport%20280/774403_10151234977128603_1564184515_o.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 774403_10151234977128603_1564184515_o.jpg"/></a>

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...64184515_o.jpg

Dash
 

Once you decide on your dash material you should check out Hydro dipping. You can get just about any color or pattern imaginable, and it is super durable. Attachment 492233

new gauges and switches would make it look 15yrs newer if its in your budget

Imade this one out of a piece of aluminum and had it painted to match the graphics on the hull. It's flexable enough to curve a little.

Keep the ideas coming. I am def going to replace my gauges.

This is mine when I did this year. the main panel I made out of aluminum, and then had all the panels Hydro dipped.
http://hornbucklemarine.net/phpBB3/d...ile.php?id=240

Does anyone have a sync gauge? Is it necessary???

Mittens, dash looks great. I was thinking of doing abs as in post #2 and carbon fiber wrap

I had one in my old dash but felt it was taking up valuable real estate so I removed it. Not really necessary as the same thing can be done by watching the tachs!

I looked into the Carbon fiber plates, $$$ and my stock pieces where all made of Aluminum and painted/coated. so i found the same thickness Aluminum, and started working. then i had an exact match for the one panel, (where the GPS went, that was the main purpose). and then designed the lay out, and trimmed out holes and switches. then took all stock panels out, and the new one and had them all coated. (that way I can go back to stock if wanted too, but dough I ever will). I have a whole thread of the setps in the baja section if you want to see pics on the whole deal/process


With open exhaust you can pretty much get them perfect even with out the tachs...... its all in the sound man.

Thank you mittens. Idk why mine came with one. Looks like spaceship from the 80's with all the gauges. Less is more. I appreciate all the ideas and feedback. Now I need to price everything out and pull the trigger. Any gauge brands to stay away from? I used teleflex lido line up as replacements for my old vdo gauges in my baja sport 220. They were good.

I don't have all those fancy gauges that everyone has, but I had to add a GPS and so i had to remove my speedo and re-do my dash.
I did it in carbon fiber and I did it myself, I think it turned out great.
There's actually three pieces to it, you can only see the one in this picture, I guess I need to get a better one of it.

314 Your dash came out very nice love the all white, If your looking for a good gauge but not the big name these were good, ss competition gauges.com good quality and a fair price.

you have the same gauges i have, just white bezels where i have yellow. and yours looks great man.

For the money, autometer is hard to beat.

How thick should I go with on the dash? I am going to go with ss competition, it looks like its going to cost about 300 for all the gauges.

Thanks for the advice guys! But again, how thick should I go with for a new dash pane?

Thanks for gauge info and nice comments, Innotech in St. Louis made the carbon fiber dash.

We redid a friends 382 that had the stock printed fiber looking panels to the Innotech ones.
It about glows in the sun light and has an unreal depth to them.

wow that looks sweet!!

How to
 

Go to restorations and upgrades, look at the gauge panel thread started by iculookin......the one with about 15 or 20 pages...

Fountain dash
 

Is there anybody out there that can do vinyl wrap on a dash panel, that WOULD be able to lay out all of the labels?

yes, we can do that...Rob @ [email protected]

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...psbdfd010f.jpg


Well thanks to everyone's 2 cents and some creativity, this is my finished product. Now I just need to do the other panels!