Time now to look at the instrument panel. The original was a blocky, purple plastic thing, that the world is better off without. Rich suggested that we try to make a nixie tube speedometer. I couldn't think of anything that would be cooler than that so I went ahead and mounted everything up so that he could route the original encoder through a contraption of his own making. I used the original fuel and temp. meters, but hacked them into antique voltage meter bodies to maintain the vintage feel of the machine. A lot of hours went into these little details. The meters had to be mounted on a piece of plexiglas, hung behind the face plate with aluminum standoffs. I cut out new meter scales from pieces of plastic and drew in the scales by hand. Then some LEDs were added to illuminate them. I found some old Russian nixies on the internet and mounted them behind a slightly larger voltage meter body.

Update: I just realized I never posted an image of the final instrument cluster. The speedometer worked out quite well, though the temp meter reads backwards, doh! I suspect it is a simple matter of reversing the wires but I have not had the motivation to pull the panel apart since I finished it.