Yeah.....that's about what I found with my stock SR5 gauges....useless.

I managed to burn out my factory oil pressure gauge when I did the 3.4L swap and forgot to switch the sensor before I started it the first time. I've had an aftermarket OP gauge, mounted to the windshield pillar, ever since.

The water temp gauge would move to the half way point as the truck was warming up.....but, never move after that. So, I never really know what was happening with the temp.....not to mention, it doesn't actually give a tempature.....that always bugged me.

The factory fuel gauge isn't bad at all though. It reads pretty acurately, and it's slow responce time (like all the other factory gauges) keeps it from bouncing around. I've checked out those links for aftermarket gas gauges and, decided to stick with the factory gauge. It works fine and the new face plate will make it match the others.....the only problem now is that it is square and not round like the other gauges.

Mounting the aftermarket gauges in the factory gauge cluster isn't all that hard.....but it's kind of tedious work. I bet I've got about 15 hours into this little project.

I've got all the gauges mounted and the new outter face plates made....to cover up the holes I cut in the original. I went to about a 2 dozen different stores before I found suitable material to make the new cover plate from. I checked harware stores, hobby shops, autoparts stores, building supply companies....all sorts of stores. I wanted a thin, black, mat finish plastic....and couldn;t find it. Everything I came across was too thick and too smooth....then I found it!....at Office Depot....a cheap plastic bussiness folder. The color and finish are perfect match to the factorygauges cluster. I haven't got them glued into place yet, but with them just lying on top of the factory face plate you actually have to look cloesly to see that they are overlaid.

I'll post pictures when I'm done and ready to install.

I have an 88 and I was planning going to the junkyard with a list of misc parts (gas tank door, antenna, and if I can find one a SR5 cluster. The cluster should clip in to my existing harness right? will the OP, and tach work or do I need to hook those up separately.

I'm not sure. I haven't done much with first gens'. But, I would suspect you'd have to swap the sensors too, to make it all work. The wiring should be in place though.

I swaped my gauge cluster with one from an 87/88 sr5 4runner I had to run a tach wire.every thing else plugged right up.Make sure to swap the oil pres. sending unit before you energize thegauge or it will be fried.I here some trucks are prewired for the tach.search around there is a link to explain it.I made a post with a link from another member a while back but there are more.saw one recently too.good luck it sure is nice to have the gauges