Restoring Instrument clusters:

[speeder]

I’ve been taking apart clusters and cleaning them up for a long time but my game recently got elevated with some proper fluorescent orange needle paint.

Mercedes-Benz and some other European manufacturers used VDO gauges back in the day with orange needles. It was a safety feature, they are easier to see day or night and therefore less time to glance at them and away from the road. All good except they did not account for UV damage, at all. In sunny parts of the world, like the SW USA, the needles fade sometimes completely back to dull beige, which is invisible at night with old lighting fixtures, (at least to my old eyes).

I used to have gauges rebuilt by North Hollywood Speedometer and they would paint the needles. Another guy I used, (an absolute craftsman), gave me a small bottle of the orange paint once but I never used it and it dried up. So off to eBay I went!

Several sellers, so I picked a random one and ordered some paint. When I tried it out the first time, I thought it was no good because it’s watery and thin. But it’s actually perfect…in my research long ago, I read about guys on forums who had painted needles and ruined their gauges because the paint added too much weight to sometimes delicate precision instruments. The thin, watery stuff I have is the perfect viscosity and two thin coats works great. All gauges work as designed!

Lately, it’s been just old MB clusters because that’s what I have around but I’ve done others. I carefully take them apart, clean the faces of the gauges, (this is a sensitive part of the job), wash the plastic carrier and clean up the clear plastic with professional products. I then paint the needles, let them dry and put it all back together. I’m pretty OCD, so I even clean the bulbs and of course replace any bad ones.

I don’t have a lot of “before pictures” but here is one I just finished:

EDIT: I can’t seem to post photos from my phone for some reason. I’ll post some when I get home. 🏠

[speeder]

[speeder]

Ok, found the glitch. Before:



After:

[speeder]

Painting:

[speeder]

Another finished one, W116 cluster…I am on a tear:


Back of a cluster:

[rfuerst911sc]

Nice work 👏

[Bill Douglas]

Well done. I'd be afraid I'd break something removing them from the car.

Umm, not wanting to go off topic, but what's with that Triumph 650 in the background?

[MMARSH]

Denis, those look really good. I might have a project for ya.



The decent one is off my 8K mile 86 GSXR, the faded one is off another 86 I have. What do ya think?

[speeder]

Originally Posted by MMARSH

Denis, those look really good. I might have a project for ya.



The decent one is off my 8K mile 86 GSXR, the faded one is off another 86 I have. What do ya think?

Looks do-able, do you think that those needles started out orange?

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Well done. I'd be afraid I'd break something removing them from the car.

Umm, not wanting to go off topic, but what's with that Triumph 650 in the background?

1970 Triumph Bonneville.

The tricky part isn’t removing the cluster from the car, (usually), it’s cleaning the faces of the gauges. That’s the delicate part. I think that I broke a couple in the beginning, way back when. I’m stubborn, though.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Looks good!
What are you using to clean the plastic covers?
I've got several plastic covers that took one or two hits of an incompatable cleaner and are splotched stained.

How'd you do it?

[speeder]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

Looks good!
What are you using to clean the plastic covers?
I've got several plastic covers that took one or two hits of an incompatable cleaner and are splotched stained.

How'd you do it?

I clean all of the plastic parts with soap and water first, (weak solution), then use Maguire's plastic cleaner and polish on the clear plastic. It's good stuff but the cleaner can scratch if not careful, it can also remove scratches as well. The housing of these MB clusters can just be washed under the faucet once all of the guts are removed, it's all plastic.

[wdfifteen]

Nice work! Looks like fun, too.
But, more important than my opinion, what do the turtles think about it?

[javadog]

Originally Posted by speeder

Looks do-able, do you think that those needles started out orange?

Yes. Not quite the same shade as Mercedes but definitely more orange than yellow.

[911 Rod]

My OCD loves this!

[MMARSH]

Originally Posted by javadog

Yes. Not quite the same shade as Mercedes but definitely more orange than yellow.

Thanks. I was gonna ask you what you thought.

[Scott Douglas]

Very nice work. Wish I had the patience to do this kind of thing.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by javadog

Yes. Not quite the same shade as Mercedes but definitely more orange than yellow.

Cool. Maybe I can get a shade online that is more accurate. Or from an art supply store, just needs to be water based for needles.

[javadog]

Originally Posted by speeder

Cool. Maybe I can get a shade online that is more accurate. Or from an art supply store, just needs to be water based for needles.

The speedo on his 8K '86 is pretty close. The gauges were all made by Nippon Denso. Here's a race tach made by them for Suzuki from the same era.