I took a little time to re-install the pillar gauge pod today,  I was tired of looking at the metal.  But first I wanted to fix the cruise control so it would work properly.  Unfortunately I got wrapped up in the work and neglected to really get any good pictures this time around.

I had to order a second brake switch and pigtail to put on the clutch since the factory M6 cars used a bit different switch that would have been more of a pain to wire in.

Factory M6 clutch switch.

And here is the brake switch that I replaced it with.

Here is the A4 factory pigtail that goes to the brake switch.  I don’t know why it was wrapped in electrical tape that was then wrapped with masking tape as neither wire had been cut.

Now, GM does sell a split pigtail that will run to both the clutch and brake from the single pair but as usual it is expensive.  So instead I decided to make my own.  I snipped the brown wire on the pigtail and soldered the new pigtail in series so that it should act as a single circuit now.  I haven’t had the chance to test it yet but this should allow both the brake and clutch to turn off cruise control.

With that done I went to working on the gauge pod.  I ditched the lame expansion fuse holder that plugged into the block and then had other fuses attach to it and instead went with some inline fuse holders.  I soldered them into the harness with male disconnects on the end that I plugged into the block sections that were intended for aftermarket power needs, then outfitted them with 3 amp fuses

After feeding everything back through the dash and bolting the pillar pod up, I found that the existing hole that I drilled in the firewall was too small to accommodate the new vacuum hose that needed to be run in addition to the other sender wires.  Pulled the grommet out and re-drilled it up to 1/2″ then found another grommet that fit the new hole and we were in business.  I also chose to upgrade the wires for the water temp sender as well.  It previously only had about 6 inches of lead with this pain in the ass bullet style connectors that were next to impossible to get connected right once the sender was in the head.  So I snipped them off and for the ground, just wired in a few feet of cable that runs straight to a ring terminal and no more disconnects.  For the signal cable I also soldered in a few feet of wire that ended in a spade disconnect that is much easier to access and soldered the corresponding disconnect onto the gauge signal wire.  Installing the vacuum hose turned out to be the most time consuming part of the job.  For starters it took a great deal of effort and cursing just to get the hose onto the supplied T connector.  Then I had to pull most of the top end off just to access the hose that I was going to tap into on the back of the intake manifold.  But with that done I put wire loom on all the signal & ground wires and zip tied them to secure places.

With everything hooked back up I fire her back up.  Aaaaand, the water temp gauge has no power at all and the fuel pressure is pegged out.  The vacuum gauge is working perfectly though.  The fuel pressure is likely a ground issue, I ran into this some with it previously so I will work on that later.  The most irritating part of this is the lack of power to the water temp, this means I will have to pull the whole pod again to troubleshoot the problem.  And I hope it turns out to be something stupid like the plug is not all the way in and not a real wiring issue because I will have to unwrap a crap ton of tape to get to the solder points again then wrap it back up.