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AutoMeter Gauge Wiring & Install
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AutoMeter electrical gauges have a lot of wiring! You�ll need to run a total of five(5) wires for each gauge� while some of which can be combined, I opted to keep everything separate for easy troubleshooting in the future. Also, I recommend removing the driver seat for the rest of the install� it�ll give you lot more room to work with when you need to go under the dash. Also, disconnect your negative terminal if you haven�t already done so! NOTE: As you pull the seat off, make sure to disconnect the seatbelt warning harness.

First item is removing your a-pillar trim. In order to remove, you need to remove the latching hook & sun-visor, than pop out your overhead light. You don�t have to remove the light completely� just pop out the plastic cover, undo the 2 screws that hold it in place and let it hang. After that, grab the A-pillar trim and start pulling from the top of the windshield area out. There are 2 metal clips that hold it in place and 2 plastic nipples that lines up your trim to the metal. Don�t pull too hard or you may break the plastic housing that�s holding the metal clips. I pulled it out far enough to get a screwdriver inside it to pop the clip out instead of just blindly tug at it. Left photo shows the a-pillar trim removed and the contact points for the clips.

Now that the trim is out of the way, start dropping all your wires that will lead from the gauges to your power, ground, and sender. You going to end up dropping about 8-10 wires into that little gap! NOTE: Follow your AutoMeter instructions very carefully and make sure you tag all your wires and what they are for.

I also used color-coded wires to make life simple� don�t just use one color for everything, or life can be hell when it comes down to connecting everything up! Right photo shows the hole which I used for dropping wires from a-pillar.

After you dropped all your wires through the hole and under your dash, move them aside� we�ll get back to them later. Now, we need to pull the sender wires through the firewall and into the engine bay. The easiest location to pull any wires through is the hole that�s in place for some of your ECU cables and hood-cable. If you look under the hood, on the driver side of the firewall, you�ll see a plastic boot that sticks out of the firewall. Carefully cut open the tape with a shape utility knife� making sure not to cut any of your ECU cabling! Once the tape is out of the way, get something flexible and long so you can feed it into the hole. Forgot about removing the boot, you won�t need to remove it to run the cabling. I used a long zip-tie, which was able to feed all the way thought. You want to run it from the firewall side, and feed it into your dash area.

Now look under your dash and find where the zip-tie popped out. It should have popped out right next to your ECU cabling. NOTE: depending on how many gauges you are running, the next few steps may different for the wire count. I than mark which sender wires is for what and taped the marking on both ends of the wires. I have two sender wires that�s going into the engine bay, so I tape the wires directly to the zip-tie and pulled it back out from the engine bay� and than, you should now have two sender wires inside the engine bay leading from your cabin. Too much tape can get the zip-tie stuck in there� don�t ask me how I know. If it does get stuck, pull it back out and try again� never force it or you may damage your ECU wiring.

Now run enough wire to where the oil relocation base is going to be, for me� it�s to the empty area behind the passenger-side headlight. Always run a little extra wiring for mistakes! Now you should have two sender wires leading from the dash area to your sender�s location with tags on each wire so that you know which is for what.

Second part to the wiring is the power for the gauge and the lights, and grounding everything down. For the power for the gauge, you�ll need a source, which is going to power-up when you turn your key to the first �ON� position. You can either pull it from your radio�s power or like me, pulled it from the 12v adapter. If you do pull it from the 12v adapter, make sure you do not use it for anything else because it�ll blow the fuse� because your gauge is always going to be drawing power from it. The 12v adapter will also have a ground wire for it� which is what I used to ground the gauge to.

So now that the power and ground for the gauge is out of the way, we need to run the gauge lights. I opted to cut into my dash lights so that they�ll light up whenever I switch my dash lights on. There�s many different area to tap for power for the gauge lights, but the dash lights was both simple and easy tap.

Slowly remove your speedometer housing by starting from the bottom of the housing and working to the back. There is a total of 3 metal clips that�s holding it in place� and a little force will be needed to pop them out. Just make sure you go slowly by hand and don�t use any pry bars or anything.

After the housing is out, unscrew the speedometer itself and flip it up to access the 3 wiring harness in the back of it. While leaving everything plugged in, find the red/black wire in the center harness� that is your dash lights main power and it can support several gauge lights without blowing a fuse or overloading. I splice into this wire a 16-gauge wire and dropped it past my steering column, than tape everything back up with electrical tape. NOTE: all wiring that�s going to be areas that you are not going to access anymore should be taped up with electrical tape before sealing.

Reinstall your speedometer housing and make sure your wire is out of the way as you pop the housing back on.

Here�s a picture of all my dropped wires from the A-pillar area, the center console and the dash lights. It�s messy and that�s why you want to make sure everything is color-coded and tagged with names of where they�re coming from or going to. Now, splice all the grounds together and splice the two power wires from your gauge to the power for your 12v adapter. Than splice the two gauge light wires to the power wire that you dropped from your dash light. After everything is done, you should have no wires left� if you do, better go back and check your wiring!

Now, we go pre-wire the gauge for install into the a-pillar gauge pod. I pre-wire the gauge with 2 inches of wire of the correct color-code to make it simpler to splice once you mount the pod to the a-pillar trim. I than took my gauge pod and trim piece and played with location of where I want the pods. Keep in mind that your hand will be near it and that it�ll probably block some area of view past your a-pillar� just find a location that you like. I used masking tape to tape the pods in place to find the best location for me. NOTE: once it�s mounted, you cannot remount� so make sure you�re happy with the location of the pods before any drilling and tapping of the pod to the trim piece.

Once you find where the pod is going on the trim piece, line them up and mark the area that you need to drill out for the running of the gauge wires from the pod and into the trim piece itself. Again� note that the drilling is pretty final, so make sure you line it up correctly! Once you find the location, get out the drill and start drilling. I used a 1.5-inch hole-maker and was able to pop a nice clean hole into the trim piece. Drill from the front of the piece to the back of it while you support the back with a piece of small wood� it�ll be a cleaner hole.

Now, mount the gauge into the pod and run the wires out the other side. Make sure everything is clean and in order (taped up), than mount the pod onto the a-pillar trim piece and hold it in place with masking tape. Use a bit of correct sizing and tap 4 small holes into each corner of the pod, making sure it goes through to the trim piece. Use the plastic self-securing screws and mount the pod onto the trim piece. Now, start connecting the correct wires to the wires that you pulled from the dash area. If you have all your wires marked correctly, everything should splice together without issue. Now tape it all up because you don�t want loose wires undoing itself in here!

Clean everything up nice and neat, than pop your whole a-pillar trim piece back into place. BUT do not lock it back into place yet. We want to make sure everything is working before you fasten it back all together. Use several zip-ties to hold everything together so that you can drive it later without the piece falling off. If you have a volt-meter� you can run test of the wires to make sure everything is lined up.