I recently acquired a small Mitsubishi tractor, D2050. A refurbished unit.
I was somewhat disappointed that it had no gauges to monitor the engine systems, just idiot lights. All of my equipment has gauges, and it was driving me crazy not being able to monitor systems on this new to me tractor. The dash panel presented some obstacles, mostly in its small size. Common 2" gauges just weren't going to work without trashing the dash panel. I mulled over adding an auxiliary panel, but nothing real promising was coming to mind.
Over 4th of July, I visited with a group of friends who had quite a collection of Harleys. The host was showing me how he had mounted an oil pressure gauge in a chrome lug nut cover (semi size). Very nicely done. And the first thing I noticed was the small size of the gauge.
I started shopping for motorcycle gauges. Found what I wanted for the temp and oil, but didn't have any luck on a voltmeter (which should be the simplest and cheapest gauge) unless I wanted to spend $75 for an autometer. So I settled for a digital style with a color coded bar graph that would fit my available space.
I spent a few hours on this project, mostly because of the tight quarters under the dash. The black dash panel you see is over another larger panel. The curious thing is, right at the idiot light location for the temp gauge, the lower panel had a hole for a gauge. I was able to keep the idiot light, although I didn't have a tee, so I hooked up the temp gauge in place of the idiot light sender. Carefully routed the capillary tube, encased in split loom for a little extra protection.
The oil pressure gauge required an adapter (mentioned somewhere on this site) to adapt the BSP to NPT. And I bought the tee version to keep the idiot light. Ran the copper tube inside some heavy wall vinyl tubing for protection. This was also a very straight forward installation, although when I purchased the gauge, I went with a 60 psi, where I should have bought the 100 psi. I like my gauges to read in the middle half of their range (theoretically most accurate there). The pic shows idle (900 rpm) pressure at 185ｰ coolant temp. I'll need to replace this gauge, as I don't know how its going to take being occasionally pegged.
The digital camera didn't take a very good pic of the digital gauge ??? Of course, this was the easiest install, hook a wire to a switched 12v source, and another to ground. First thing I noticed was that bright daylight washed out the display.....except the green portion which shows up in bright sunlight, and indicates the normal operating voltage range. The digital readout isn't practically visible in any kind of bright daylight. But at a glance, the green tells me everything is OK. Kinda a reverse idiot light.
Anyway, I feel much better watching my gauges.
And thanks to all the posters here, there has been much information that has helped me.
I was somewhat disappointed that it had no gauges to monitor the engine systems, just idiot lights. All of my equipment has gauges, and it was driving me crazy not being able to monitor systems on this new to me tractor. The dash panel presented some obstacles, mostly in its small size. Common 2" gauges just weren't going to work without trashing the dash panel. I mulled over adding an auxiliary panel, but nothing real promising was coming to mind.
Over 4th of July, I visited with a group of friends who had quite a collection of Harleys. The host was showing me how he had mounted an oil pressure gauge in a chrome lug nut cover (semi size). Very nicely done. And the first thing I noticed was the small size of the gauge.
I started shopping for motorcycle gauges. Found what I wanted for the temp and oil, but didn't have any luck on a voltmeter (which should be the simplest and cheapest gauge) unless I wanted to spend $75 for an autometer. So I settled for a digital style with a color coded bar graph that would fit my available space.
I spent a few hours on this project, mostly because of the tight quarters under the dash. The black dash panel you see is over another larger panel. The curious thing is, right at the idiot light location for the temp gauge, the lower panel had a hole for a gauge. I was able to keep the idiot light, although I didn't have a tee, so I hooked up the temp gauge in place of the idiot light sender. Carefully routed the capillary tube, encased in split loom for a little extra protection.
The oil pressure gauge required an adapter (mentioned somewhere on this site) to adapt the BSP to NPT. And I bought the tee version to keep the idiot light. Ran the copper tube inside some heavy wall vinyl tubing for protection. This was also a very straight forward installation, although when I purchased the gauge, I went with a 60 psi, where I should have bought the 100 psi. I like my gauges to read in the middle half of their range (theoretically most accurate there). The pic shows idle (900 rpm) pressure at 185ｰ coolant temp. I'll need to replace this gauge, as I don't know how its going to take being occasionally pegged.
The digital camera didn't take a very good pic of the digital gauge ??? Of course, this was the easiest install, hook a wire to a switched 12v source, and another to ground. First thing I noticed was that bright daylight washed out the display.....except the green portion which shows up in bright sunlight, and indicates the normal operating voltage range. The digital readout isn't practically visible in any kind of bright daylight. But at a glance, the green tells me everything is OK. Kinda a reverse idiot light.
Anyway, I feel much better watching my gauges.
And thanks to all the posters here, there has been much information that has helped me.