Gauging my work

I pulled the center gauges to complete the LED instrumentation conversion.  The replacement of the bulbs was the easy part; it's the always the things I do "since I already have it apart" that seem to be the most difficult...

Center console trim and heater diverter removed

Since I had things apart task #1: replace the bulbs.  Easy.  The gauges were already out. Done. 

Bulbs replaced and gauges cleaned up

Since I had things apart task #2:  clean the HVAC diverter.  This is the part that "splits" the blower air between the center vents and the vents on the sides of the dash.  Not only was this thing nasty, but the seals had deteriorated and there was 20 year old duct tape residue on one of the outlets.

Yuck!

After much soaking, cleaning, scraping, lather, rinse, repeat... along with generous helpings of Goo Gone...  the diverter was finally clean.  I replaced the seals on both sides with some weatherstripping.  

Let there be clean air!

Since I had things apart task #3:  clean some corrosion from the voltage meter.  This is the task where things didn't go so well.  I'm not exactly sure what it was, but there was some brownish, rust-like corrosion around the charge warning light.  While it wasn't rust, I couldn't tell exactly what it was and I had seen an identical halo around pictures of other Z car voltage meters (ammeters adorned the dashes of 240 and 260 Z's).  

The halo of funkiness

I began with a wet toothbrush in an attempt to remove the gunk, but found quickly that this stuff had loosened some of the white paint nearby!  I decided the best I could do at this point was to paint over what was left of this stuff (losing my CHG label over the indicator) and try to restore any missing lettering and meter markings.  I quickly found that I neither have a brush small enough nor a hand steady enough for this task.  I ended up carving a toothpick to a point, then roughing the end to make a few strands.  I did my best with some white and red enamels, but I wasn't terribly happy with the result.  I'll have to live with it for now; maybe I'll find a solution such as a replacement insert in the future.

Meh, not a perfect repair...

Since I had things apart task #4:  polish the gauge lenses.  If you've read some of my previous posts, I always end any work on the gauges with a nice polish using Novus plastic polish.  In this case, I had already polished the clock, so I polished the voltage/fuel gauge and the temp/oil pressure gauges.  The polish worked well, but without being able to remove the lens from the gauge bezels I couldn't get perfect results around the edges.  They still came out looking great, though.

Back together again