[markslc1]

Originally Posted by Suprgnat

I re-did the instrument cluster with new needles, gauge faces and cluster lens assembly.

The needles always bugged me as they had a hot spot in the center when the lights were on. I fixed that with new needles harvested from an E87. Only the bottom surfaces are painted, first with two coats of fluorescent red, followed by two coats of gloss white so any light leakage would reflect white light off of the gauge faces. The clear plastic of the needle transmits the fluorescent red beautifully.

The gauge faces are new from Venoxy and even better quality than the first set which was beat up from trying different needle painting techniques. I did one little tweak to the faces, no one without a micrometer would know the difference.

The lens assembly was replaced to get rid of the clouding I got on the lens when I glued it back on to the lens surround. It took me three donor clusters until I got a one where I could separate the lens from the lens surround cleanly. The interior of the lens surround is flocked, and the gauge bezels were painted using the same technique as the first time.

Nice work. I'm thinking about the process of opening up my cluster to add USA overlays for my Canadian 1m so I can get a mph reading. Is it really that hard to separate the unit to gain access?