Started breaking down the dash, removing everything to swap over to the newer dash. The existing dash had extra holes in it, rust, it was warped..... it was a mess. The donor dash is dirty, but structurally is great. I have yet to tear into the switch indicators, but did go thru the speedo cluster. Turns out its a pretty easy deal to break one down, and the difference is striking! Photos don't do the transformation justice. Best part was doing this inside .
After removing everything from the old dash, I took a few before pics of the speedo cluster as a baseline:
Then the disassembly began..... the front bezel is crimped to the speedo housing in four places - just open them back up with a screwdriver and the front bezel will just lift off the housing. The speedometer itself is held in the housing with one nut on the large threaded shaft protruding out of the rear of the housing. Removing that nut allows the speedo to lift straight out of the housing, leaving this:
The temp and fuel gauges are held in with smaller nuts, also on the rear of the housing. remove them, and the gauges will come out, after carefully wiggling them past the 4WD and Brake indicator bulb housings....... This is what I wound up with:
Took a .30 caliber bore brush and hit the threaded studs on the backs of the temp and fuel gauges - they cleaned up nicely!!
There is a trim ring between the glass and speedo face, the outer surface is painted black. Mine had scuffs and thin spots in the paint, so I threw a coat of paint on that:
Dropped by the local hobby store and picked up a bottle of Testors Fluorescent Orange paint
Here's the small gauges as they came out:
New paint:
Now, after getting the housing cleaned up, I stuck the temp and fuel gauges back in - Then found this:
This is where it was, and I put it back with double sided tape - may not last long but sitting at the bottom of the gauge I'm hoping gravity helps the tape.....
Next was the speedo needle
Oh, yeah - Since my title already states the mileage is incorrect, and the history of this cluster is unknown, I went ahead and reset the odometer to read zeros..... If it's gonna be incorrect, I might as well log my mileage..... After getting the needle painted, I pondered repainting the orange line from 55 to 85 in orange as it originally was. I figured I only had one shot at it cause removing the orange paint if I screwed it up would also more than likely remove the black paint from the gauge face.... What the hell - What could happen. Here's the result....
Only thing left was to clean the glass (and it was FILTHY, inside and out) and reassemble.... I still need to address dedicated grounds, but I stuck it back together for a pic.... I still can't believe the difference......
, but it's 99% cosmetic - dirt, paint, spider poop, scratches, etc. No extra holes, no dents, and flat. A good sanding and some primer and this one will look great.
