In spite of John's solicitous enquiry I did not trash my dial by an accidental motor startup but I did get fed up with craning my neck and messing about with mirrors to read the dial gauge when placed in awkward positions.
I thought a remote readout would be rather nice so I tried a few experiments using a surplus 400Hz synchro as a sensor. It turned out surprisingly well and I now have remote reading +/-0.020" and +/_0.002" full scale two range lever type electronic dial gauge.
The circuitry is pretty simple and non critical- a
555 timer and one quad opamp. Although it's designed round a synchro sensor it could also be used with a linear inductive sensor and could be pushed to microinch sensitivity.It' a long way off mainstream group activity but if there's any interest I'll post the circuit diagram and a few pictures.
Jim