[Vwdiesel] console gauges

[Scott Alexander]

I picked up a console from someone else on the list recently and he was
kind enough not only to send the complete pigtails on the gauges, but
the next length of cable as well.  I'm assuming that I'll have to rig
something up, but wanted to understand how the guages were intended (by
VW) to be connected before I start inventing.

The cable is pretty long, so I'm surmising it runs into the engine
compartment.  Part way along its length, a brown wire comes out of the
cable and has a screw terminal.  Hooking things up confirms this is the
ground and I'm guessing that that might have been intended to connect to
somewhere around the fuse panel.

At the far end of the cable, there are two connectors that are limited
to being no more than about 8-12" apart by virtue of the length of wire
available after the wrapping ends.  One connector is a slide on and
drives the oil temperature gauge and clearly slides over the top of the
sender.  The other connector takes three pins.  One of these provides
the voltage for the voltmeter to measure.  Another provides power for
the clock.  The third provides power for the backlights for the gauges.
Clearly, the voltmeter should be powered only when the car is on.  The
clock should always be powered.  I was thinking that the backlights
needed to be dimmable, but I could imagine VW having cheaped out and
figured that they were far enough from the driver that simply having
them come on when the headlights were on was sufficient.

Thus my question is where VW tapped in to get power for each of these.
(Did they ever put consoles in Diesels?  If not, presumably the answer
will apply to the GTI.)  Does anyone who has added a console to a Diesel
have any good suggestions on how they wired it in?  I'm in the process
of adding the Roger Brown tach and so will lose my dashboard clock.
While the new radio has a clock, it looks like it's not particularly
user friendly about displaying radio information and clock information
at the same time.  And I figure the other two gauges will be good for
some warm fuzzies.

Thanks,
Scott Alexander
'82 Rabbit Diesel