Gauge / Speedo Restoration Done Cheaply

[boleador]

A few weeks back I started looking into restoring my gages. The chrome was pitted and the dials had long since faded. I was disappointed however by the high price being charged by most gage specialists, so I thought I’d give it a shot myself. I knew right off the bat that I probably wouldn’t be able to color match 100% to the original factory spec, but I was willing to accept that.
I started out by going to a hardware store that I knew had plenty of spray paint colors to choose from (OSH) and then I pulled the gages out of the car. The gages open up by prying the chrome rings off from the backside.
Here’s the speedo before restoration:

Notice the sad state of the chrome.

The speedo needle came right off, and I made a mental note of the position of the needle shaft so that I could put it back on in its original location.

The chrome rings from the fuel gage and speedo polished right up with a little bit of steel wool.

The white ring inside the speedo was yellowed and broken into two pieces.

The fuel gage taken apart.

The numbers on the speedo are printed on a plastic disc that is riveted to a dark colored metal backing plate. This makes it easy to restore the color of the gage face without having to painstakingly repaint the numbers and tick marks on the gage.

I proceeded to mangle the rivet trying to get the two plates apart…not a pretty process. I clearly need a better tool for this.

Finally the plates came apart and I could see the extent of the fading and sun damage.

Dark colored parts prior to painting.

Here are all the dark colored parts during painting.

Here’s the speedo face after painting

Here’s the fuel gage with the needle and face place removed. The fuel needle came off by pulling straight up on it. The Speedo shaft was extremely stubborn; I had to use two soup spoons to pry it up, but in the end it came off without damage.

When the paint was dry, it was time to re-attached the plastic disc to the metal gage face…If I had any rivet tools this would have been a much easier job.

Here’s the speedo almost reassembled and a couple back in the car. The gages went back together fairly easily; I just had to gently pry the chrome rings back over the lip of the gage housing. The clock was still an old replacement piece of junk, so I started on that one next.

I bought a non-working clock off of the forum, again it was pretty dirty, but cleaned up nicely with a little steel wool.

I ended up cracking the lens while it was sitting on my work bench, so I’ll have to get another donor part to replace it. To get the hands off of the clock, I had to get a “micro gear puller” from my local hobby shop (Hobby People), it was $12 and seemed like a fairly common thing to them. (1mm -2mm kit). In order to get the gear puller to fit around the needles, I had to modify it a little with my dremel.

Again, restoration was a matter of 1) polishing the chrome, 2) painting the white parts white, and the dark parts dark and 3) putting it all back together again.

The clock wasn’t running because the thermal fuse had blown, so I replaced it with some low temperature solder…as you can see, I’m no expert with the solder. I cleaned out the clock mechanism with a little brake cleaner (bad idea) and them some compressed air (good idea). I used the lightest oil I had and then oiled all the contact points and the clock started running like…well…clock work.

I’ve had the clock hooked up to a nine volt battery for a few hours and it seems to be running a little slow. I’m going to try to fiddle with the speed adjuster to make sure it’s keeping good time before I commit to closing it back up and putting it in the car. I’ve also found that the plastic lens polishes up nicely with a little car polish, making it easy to remove scratches.
All in all, I found the gage restoration to be a very easy and straight-forward process. Fun and WELL worth the monetary savings!

[tondemonai]

you've got 12v part, hook it up to a 12v source and see if that doesn't speed it up.
otherwise, excellent photos, so thank you there, and great job!
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[Disc]

12V source will not speed up the clock! The clock a spring loaded mechanism and the power just load the spring. Dealing with speed adjuster is the right decision.

[sputnick60]

Nicely documented. I love the macro function on these modern cameras
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[Gary]

[Loren]

I would use kerosene to clean the clock works and be sure to use clock oil to lubricate the mechanism. I went to my local clock shop and they gave me some oil for free, thoug you migh take a small container with you. An old film container works great for collecting free oil, for those of you old enough to know what those are

[danielsan]

Very nice! I'm impressed


I've had good luck with Dumonde Tech Bicycle Chain Lube 'Lite' -- I put a drop on a sewing needle and let it drip onto the wheel before the big spring. It is as light as clock oil but it much easier to work with -- easy to remove any excess and doesn't attract dust the way that traditional oils do. If you try it, let it sit for a while before adjusting the clock. It dries to a teflon-like film.

In adjusting, I watched the pendulum and said 'one' at normal speaking speed while adjusting the screw. If the pendulum was able to complete one swing while I was midway through the 'e' sound the clock kept pretty good time. I gain 1 minute every two days or so which isn't bad for a mechanical clock.

Thanks for the write up.

[boleador]

Hey guys, thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

I have to admit that I used regular ol' 3-in-1 oil to get the clock working...buuuuut considering that I need to buy a new clock to replace the broken lens *anyway* I'll probably take a stab at cleaning the replacement clock properly and lubing with clock oil.

The paint I used was just regular spray paint (some color paint, and some were primers). I went down to OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware) and picked out about 7 different colors and made some test strips at home. I think that I got fairly close but the paint I used was darker and more metallic than stock. The basic colors were white, a dark metallic grey, and a very light apple green for the interior of some of the housings.

[Paul_Revere's Ghia]

Great thread- Really nicely documented! many thanks-
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[DSF]

Great post! Maybe I'll get brave and try mine...

[tstracy39]

The clock lens is just plexiglass. You can get plastic cutting saw blades from Rio jewelry supply and cut a circle out of a Plexi sheet, but I have a lathe that I use for this type of thing, and metal cutting lathe tools work great for machining acrylic. The thingy on the other side if the adjuster knob isn't held on particularly tight, but I tried using loc-tite to reattach it and that sure didn't work for shite. I'm sure loc-tite works great on larger parts, but on the microscopic level, it sucks. Next time I will try to remove the knob itself, maybe heat up the metal part with a soldering iron and yank it off. Steel wool or any other type of abrasive isn't neccessary to get the the chrome looking like new. Brasso and repeated vigorous scrubbing with a rag is sufficient to remove all the tarnish, in my experience.
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[boleador]

I took my gps unit with me in the car for the first time yesterday and as it turns out my speedometer is only accurate at 40 mph.

So, despite it being pretty, it's still a lump of crap. When I get some energy I'll look into figuring out why it's so messed up.

When going 35 it read 25. When going 60 to 65, it would read anywhere from 60-85 mph!

[70 140]

not to nit pick, but that is way too much solder for the fused link in the clock. It should be a small spot that fills the holes in the two sides of the link (when you line the holes up)

I used to cut new plastic faces out of plexi. Trace it and use a utility knife, thats the easiest. Then use a small file to dress the edges and fit it to the ring.

The clock adjuster in the plastic faces comes apart easily. Just be careful not to damage the black knob part. You should only need your fingers to hold the knob, pliers for the metal side.

And - you can adjust the speed of the clock once its all put back together. If your clock case still has it, you may need to peel back a decal to access the hole. Use a small slot screwdriver. 1/8 of a turn clockwise you should slow the clock down by about 5 minutes per 24 hours - speed it up is vice versa.

[tstracy39]

[uffdakev]

I got brave after reading this post and pulled my clock apart.

I slightly split the aluminum bezel, I guess I was too impatient. Every thing in my clock is the same as the pictures.

I have 2 problems not mentioned in this post. The black knob that is suppose to adjust the hour and minute hands doesn't push in far enough to engage the hands, and the black knob doesn't even turn the internal metal piece that should engage the minute hand. I assume they should be connected and must be broken. I just can't pull them apart. Maybe I need a micro gear puller.

My second problem (question) is "Boleador" said he was replacing a thermal link using low temperature solder to complete the circuit. Why is this necessary and what temperature solder did you use. It would seem that the intended need for this connection would be as a fuse for an overload rather than too high temperature
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Kevin
70 Ghia vert

[boleador]

[Rogb]

Just a side note on timing the clock, One could use a metronome set at 60 beats a minute to get the timing pretty close

[Altema]

[kiwighia68]

I needed this thread more than you guys will ever know. I have my instruments out and yesterday I was told by the chrome-plater that it would be cheaper to buy new ones. Now I know I can do it myself.

The white ring in my speedo is also broken with a small piece missing. How do I repair and patch that? Should I use putty or a smooth bodyfiller, do you think?
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1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[secretsubmariner]

I have a question on a 4 year old post, sorry!

How did you so easily remove the chrome rings from the gauge housings?
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