Assembling The Instrument Cluster w/New Bezel

Using the new bezel and lens rings, but the old lens, instrument cluster, optional gauges I will build a new instrument cluster that I hope looks close to original. To complete the process I need to do the following:

1. Cut holes in the new bezel for the optional gauges
2. Re-mount optional gauges on new bezel
3. Mount new gauge lens rings on old lens
4. Mount old primary cluster to new bezel
5. Mount completed instrument cluster in Old Blue

Cutting Holes in the New Bezel:

This task concerned me the most about the whole bezel replacement as I had read that you only get one shot at this and that many things can go wrong, from obvious misplacement to wrong hole size to cracking bezel plastic, etc. Also, there is no consensus on what size the hole should be. Bill at the FE forums shows the page from the shop manual that says these should be 2 3/16", other writers say they used 2 1/16" so I measured the existing holes as well as the gauge housing and I came up with 2 1/8" for both. I MEASURED 3 TIMES just to be sure ! 

It took a while to find a 2 1/8" hole drill for plastic as I did not want to spend $45 for some special made professional diamond coated bit and settled for OSH's craftsmen bit for $8. 

I had spent a good deal of time anticipating HOW I would position the holes on the new bezel. I knew this was very important as I would be looking at the gauges for many years and if they were not aligned .. Hmmm ... well, hole placement on the bezel was actually very straight forward. The bezel had positioning points on the back for the optional gauge holes. I just turned the bezel over and after measuring the old holes AGAIN,  I gently pressed the drill into the plastic and let the teeth do their work. On the first hole I did not apply enough pressure and the plastic started to melt rather than cut, when I noticed this I applied more pressure and the hole popped right out. I then cut the second hole with no incident.

Drilling the optional gauge holes in the DC Bezel

Mounting the Optional Gauges:
The optional gauges slip through the front of the bezel and held in place by the gauge housing by 2 nuts secured to the same posts that the wires connect to. Make sure the gauges are straight before gently tightening the nuts with a 3/8" wrench, taking care not to over tighten and cracking the bezel.

Mount the gauge on the bezel by pushing gauge through front

Mounting the New Gauge Rings on the Old Lens:

Newly painted rings on old lens

Mounting the inner gauge rings took a little finessing as the bottom mounting tab on the back of the ring is manufactured 1/16" of an inch lower than the originals. The two top tabs fit in the original holes perfectly, so I took a pair of wire cutters and snipped off the bottom tab on each of the two rings. Slipping the two top tabs into the lens, I dropped a little gorilla glue into the tab holes and let dry, securing the rings to the face of the lens.

Mount Old Gauge Cluster in the New Bezel:

Turn the bezel on its face and slip the lens in place, then mount the primary gauge cluster aligning the little tabs to ensure a tight fit. The cluster only fits one way the seven retaining screws hold firmly.

Reassembled Bezel

Mount the complete Instrument Cluster in the Dash:
Now comes the fun part, positioning the new bezel into the dash I re-connected the wiring from left to right checking against pictures I took before removing to unsure correct wiring; saving the speedometer cable until last and attaching this by reaching up behind the dash and turning the single nut until hand tight,.

!966 Instrument Cluster

Quite a difference !!!

Old v. New 

Refreshing the Optional Gauges

Old Blue came from the factory with the optional Alternator and Oil Pressure gauges mounted on the outer flats of the bezel. To mount them I will have to drill holes for each of them in the reproduced bezel, however before doing this, I will clean the chrome, polish the plastic and repaint the needles so they are fluorescent red again instead of the faded orange they are today.

1966 Ford F-250 Custom Cab Instrument Cluster

Tasks:
1. Breaking down each gauge
2. Removing rust and polishing chrome on the rings
3. Polishing the plastic lens
4. Painting the needles

ALT Gauge removed from bezel - rust on face ring 

Breaking Down the Gauges
To clean the gauges I will break them down to their components parts, which requires a small flat head screwdriver to pry up the retaining tabs located around the lip of the chrome ring. There are 5 tabs and you want to take care not to bend them back and forth as they can break off with too much movement.

Removing Cover Ring

Lift the tabs and the chrome ring separates from the gauge housing, allowing the plastic lens holding ring to be lifted off the gauge. The lens separates by gently pushing up from the back of the holding ring.

The lens holding ring has a slot at the top and the lens fits into this slot to allow light from the bulb in the gauge housing to illuminate the face of the gauge at night. The lens can only fit one way into the holding ring.

The lens is plastic

The Face plate on these gauges are chromed metal and the inner face is painted argent just like other surfaces on the bezel.

Removing Rust and Polishing the Ring: 

Face Ring 

The ring has rust and pitting on the chrome so we will use the same techniques we use with our bicycle handles ... using aluminium foil dipped in a little water, we rub the surface of the chrome lightly removing rust and bumps. I want to take care not to mess with the argent inner surface as I do not want to repaint since they are in pretty good shape.

I will use Mothers Chrome polish to shine up the surface and we should be good to go !

Polishing the Plastic:
The plastic lens has a few scratches and is dirty so we will use the Novus product recommended by TAP plastics to remove scatches in plastic and to give the surface a clean surface. The Novus products work well and I use the #2 and #1 only on the gauge lens. I carefully avoid the white paint on the lens (OIL / ALT) so I do not mess up the original mask.

Plastic Scratch Remover and Polish 

Painting the Needles:

The needle in the gauge has faded through the years and is now a light orange color. Reading on the FE forums from others who have refreshed their gauges I follow their recommendations and get a RED FLUORESCENT paint pen from the local Michaels. I selected the liquitex brand. Everything I read said to make sure you get fluorescent paint as normal red will not show up as well when driving at night with lights. 

I slip a piece of newspaper between the

Ready to paint needle

needle and the black background to keep from messing up the black and gently apply the red paint to the needle ... 

Red Paint Pen

The needles are delicate and move around a bit. I took care not to push too hard or to bend the needles and just gently stroked on the paint, occasionally, pushing the pen down on a piece of newspapers to keep the paint flowing. The shape of the needles required I paint the left side and right side separately, doing a couple of coats to cover the needle completely.

Reassembling the gauge is just the reverse of the tear down process, once again take care when bending the ring tabs.

Refreshed Optional Gauges

I am pretty happy with how they turned out. 

Taking Apart the Instrument Cluster

The 1966 Custom Cab instrument cluster is comprised of 4 standard and 2 optional parts that tear down and re-assemble fairly easily. The parts include :

1. Front Bezel - Chrome finished plastic that all pieces attach to and then it is screwed to dash
2. Primary Gauge Panel  - includes the speedometer, Fuel and Temperature gauges
3. Lens - has the white lettering for each of the gauges
4. Two front gauge rings - one each for the Fuel and the Temperature gauge
5. Two optional gauges (ALT/OIL Pressure)

Removing the primary gauge panel is very straight forward. Laying the cluster face down on a soft suface, remove the 7 screws from the back of the panel with a phillips head screwdriver.

Location of gauge panel screws

Gently lift up the panel revealing the plastic lens and lay the panel aside. The Lens is just laying in the bezel so lift up using the edges to keep from leaving finger prints on the lens. This leaves the two optional gauges in the bezel. To remove them, first take off the wire retaining nuts and split washers if you haven't already. The gauges are held in place by two additional nuts on the same gauge posts as the wiring but tightened to hold the housing against the bezel.

Optional Gauge Mounted on Bezel

With a 3/8" wrench remove the housing retaining nuts which release the gauge through the front of the bezel and the gauge housing on the rear. Both the gauge and housing should drop away but may need a little wiggling or pressure after sitting in place for 50 years. The gauge itself comes out the front of the bezel while the gauge housing comes off the back.  Repeat for the other optional gauge and this should leave the bezel as a single piece of plastic.

Argent Shadows For The Bezel

The new parts that I will use for the replacement instrument bezel will need to be painted to duplicate the details of the original bezel. In 1966, Ford applied argent paint to any inner surface of the instrument cluster to reduce the glare from the dashboard lights at nights. The reproduced versions (as well as the re-chromed versions) do not have this detail element so we will add the argent to both the bezel and the gauge rings.

Original bezel showing argent colored surfaces

The reproduced bezel from Dennis Carpenter comes with all surfaces chromed. People on the FE forum also report when they have their original bezels re-chromed they come back with all surfaces chrome.

Reproduced bezel showing chrome colored surfaces

So, first I will need to remove the gauge rings from the lens and then mask off the parts I want to keep chrome with blue tape.

The gauge rings are attached to the lens by 3 round posts that are inserted into 3 holes in the lens with the ends of the posts then melted to hold in place. To remove I used my fingernails to break off the melted part of the post and then gently pulled the ring from the face of the lens. I did this same procedure for both rings.

New Lens with Gauge Rings

I will paint both of the inner gauge rings and then do the same for the bezel. After wrapping with blue tape, I used an exacto knife to cut the tape to cover only the areas I want to stay chrome and  cover the remainder of the bezel with newspaper to protect the chrome finish. 

I used my usual VHT SP-188 for the Ford argent, this color is not to glossy but is not totally flat like primer.

I carefully applied two light coats of the Ford argent to the bezel inner face, letting each coat dry before adding the next. I did not sand or buff in any way as the paint was looking smooth over the chrome and I did not want to mess up an acceptable accent to the new bezel.

While the paint is drying I will take a look at the optional gauges and see what can be done to freshen them up a bit.

The Reproduced Bezel Arrives

The reproduced bezel took a week to come and upon inspection I noticed a few differences from the original.

1. The flat argent on the inside of the viewports was as expected ... not there. It was painted the same shiny chrome finish as the rest of the Bezel.
   
2. The lettering on the lens was in a different font than the original. Is flat and fat compared to original equipment manufactured by FoCo. 
   
3. The holding tabs for the chromed frames for the FUEL and TEMP were not in the same position as the originals.There are 3 tabs holding each of the rings on the lens. The bottom tab of the reproduced set is placed 1/16" lower on the ring. 
4. The M in the lettering for 'TEMP' was smudged and messed up ..Overall manufacturing quality of the bezel as well as the lens was less than the OEM.

   

   Mask Quality of Reproduced Lens

Other than these items the chrome finish was bright and beautiful and a much better finish than I got with the chrome colored rattle can stuff. So, I think the plan for refreshing Old Blues Instrument Cluster will be a mix of the new parts and the old parts to retain as much of the vintage elements as possible. Tasks include:

1. Clean old plastic lens and use with new bezel
2. Clean both optional gauges (Alt and Oil Pressure) - Chrome polish outer rings, buff plastic lens, paint needle
3. Use the new chrome rings mounted on the old lens for standard gauges (Fuel & Temp), paint the inner face of rings Ford argent
4. Paint the new bezel's inner face Ford argent 
5. Paint needles of speedometer and standard gauges fluorescent red.

Painting the Original Cluster with Krylon Chrome

While I was waiting for the repro bezel to ship, I went ahead and painted the old bezel with some rattle can chrome. I had removed the gauges, lens and optional parts and decided to retain the argent as it was in pretty good shape.

Masking the Ford Argent

Masking off the argent lips was easy and I decided to try Krylon Chrome as it looked to be the shiniest paint on the shelf.

Masking the bezel and rings.

I started by painting the outer face of the two rings from the lens, masking off the inner argent to retain the semi-gloss gray.

The rings painted up fine though the color was more gloss silver than chrome. 

Now on to the bezel ... I messed up by putting on 2 coats of the Chrome paint. Though very light coats, the paint was thick and the left side was not as crisp as I would have hoped. However the color was much more chrome than the rings and not bad for a paint job. I could still see the tooling patterns on the face and I put the gauges back on to check out the results. 

Painted Bezel

 It turned out OK but was a far cry from what I was hoping to accomplish. Overall the bezel seemed more silver than chrome, though I was able to retain the soft argent non reflective inner panels.