67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
The original gages in my L-71 cluster are in working condition but have faded faces. I have an NOS tach, speedometer and maybe some othe gages which were probably made in the mid-90's. Is it better to have the original gages restored or just use the new ones. What process is used by restoration companies to make the faded gage faces look so good.
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Pat
The speedo and tach are available faces and easy to replace. I'm not sure about the smaller ones. Another thought is to get good used gages from a coupe as they are less likely to be faded. There is a guy in Florida that does excellent work. Maybe someone on here can connect you with a name and number. -
Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Gene
So when restoration services do a dash cluster they replace the gage faces with repros rather than restore the originals somehow?Comment
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Pat,
I have not had to redo faces on my coupes. My convertible was another matter. I used replacement faces on the tach & speedo. Temp gauge was refinished. As the colors faded bad. The others are nice originals. All the arrows were re-colored fluorescent orange. I fixed my clocks using donor parts sourced at salvage yard.. I been lucky the only car I had to get professional help with was my 65 tach and speedo. But I have sent out cluster gauges for others to the fellow in Florida. He does nice work and fast. The odometers are easy to repair as there are complete kits available.Comment
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
For gauge face restoration I send them to Bill Harrison in Jupiter Florida. Here's a '61 tach face he did for me recently. I have a "before " photo but can't get to it on my other computer at the moment.
It was quite faded, dirty background, and the orange was so light it was hard to see. The replacement faces are not silkscreened as original. They are a large plastic mask covering the entire face. To me they are too shiny.
Bill takes my gauges and repairs and calibrates the movements where necessary. I get the pieces back from Bill(my choice), and refinish and repaint the cans, and acquire the parts to complete them, and then assemble the units. He'll do a complete task if needed on any Corvette instrument.
Bill is a very sharing expert as well. He has taught me the art of refinishing Gauge internal housings as well, with paint data and tricks of the restoration process. He's a great guy to work with.
Rich
Bill's paint recipes that I use on my cluster work.....
He restored the speedometer face for this one as well.
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Rob.
NCRS Dutch Chapter Founder & Board Member
NCRS Software Developer
C1, C2 and C3 Registry DeveloperComment
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Thanks Rob...As mentioned Bill has some unique skills to get the faces looking great. The speedometer above had hundreds of little pits all over the face. He has a special cleaning process to restore them. On both the tach and speedo, he had to change the main gear/magnet, then re-magnetize and calibrate. Note the tach is for a high horse FI so magnetizing is critical for a "READS TWICE CABLE SPEED" application. This is done by the amount that the magnet gets magnetized. Bill does all of the "special" stuff for me, then I do the rest, mostly because I like to do it myself. He'll do a complete restoration as well if desired.
A few years ago I restored a "LB" L71 cluster. Bill did the speedometer repair and calibration(I hand carried to him) and I did the rest. The tach and speedo faces were faded but I used the replacement faces on them as I was short on time to get the car done. Below are a few shots of the originals(left) and repro(right) faces. As you can see the repros are quite shiny. They looked nice inside the cluster I restored, but it's quite obvious they're....."new" not "restored". Next time I'd have Bill restore the faces. The original faces went with the car for safe keeping.
Rich
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As you can see, the redline areas are noticeably different on the reproduction face(right pic). This is obvious in judging so if you use the repros expect a hit on that. It could also be a indicator of "non" originality of a true "LB" cluster.
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
a few more pics
Before disassembly. That rust around the mount screws is tough to remove and refinish. One of the reasons I went with new faces. Note the bent speedo needle....I wonder how that happened.
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new faces installed
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Richard: Other than the "bite" out of the edge of the Tach face, what differences are you speaking of? Maybe the red/yellow shading extends a tiny bit more above the hash marks on the original and maybe the horizon bar on the 7 and 5 is a little thicker on the original but that is really subtle. Am I missing something else?
Is the new tach face a GM part or an aftermarket part? Who sells it? Can experts actually restore a faded tach face like your original? It looks just like mine.Comment
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Yes I'm referring to the redline area paint edges and the details of the white hashes. I'm not sure how critical it is but I'd bet a judge with a good eye could see the differences. (maybe after reading this thread too!. ooops, sorry guys.
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I don't know who makes the new faces, but not GM. Probably GM licensed like most parts these days. Bill tells me that the face is a plastic covering over the whole face. That's so on the new small gauges too I think. But of course is really a good thing that repros are available for the really bad cases or damaged ones.
I'm certain Bill could have restored that 'L71 tach face. The tricky part is that surface rust, but Bill's a master at what he does. He'd find a way to do it. I didn't have time to wait on that project. He could have refinished the orange and red like the orange on my '61 tach earlier. BTW, I forund the before pics of that one.
Rich
Before
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After again
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Two extremes shown here. One the originals have old faded colors. And two the new restored colors are over restored and too vivid deep. Convertibles have less chance of having true as built colors after 40 plus years.Comment
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Hi Gene,
What kind of points hit can one expect when you judge the gauges if you recognize repros vs restored original faces? e.g. like my '61 restored tach face?
Here's a pic of a repro face and my restored original to the right..
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Complete gauge, repro left, my original restored on right..
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RichComment
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Rich,
To be fair and follow the CDCIF judging guide lines the area we are looking at is finish and possibly configuration. Too bright of color or wrong shade is finish a max 20% for the face. And a configuration looks good. So if the small gages are worth 10 points total and only this one gage has this minor issue, I would assign it a dot. Not enough to make a deduct on such a small issue as color vividness on a small portion of the judged area. Say other gages were small issue, say too big a screw then a point deduct is justified. But that would be configuration. Your refinished gage looks fine.Comment
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Re: 67 Dash Cluster - restore or replace?
Thanks for the detailed explanation Gene.
RichComment
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