I’ve been meaning to post about this; better late than never eh? In August I sent out my original instrument cluster to be restored by Redline Gauge.
In photos it doesn’t look bad, but we have to remember that this came out of a car that was a rat hotel for nearly 40 years! The plastic cover was cloudy / had a nasty tint to it. The script / letters were rubbing off and the pointers were faded.
I wanted to upgrade from an ammeter to a voltmeter without having a useless alternator gauge that doesn’t function and having to use an aftermarket gauge tacked on underneath the dashboard. I had done some research online and learned that Shannon Hudson and Redline could do the job! Let me just start out by saying he and the team at Redline went above and beyond with the restoration. I had the cluster completely gone through and restored!
I had the ammeter removed and in it’s place is a voltmeter. My biggest thing with this restoration was to keep the ORIGINAL look. Fuel gauge was also replaced.
The speedometer was rebuilt inside with new gears as well as being calibrated.
Lastly, I had the clock rebuilt and converted it to a quartz mechanism. I can’t wait to be able to see it working!
All in all, the price of this restoration was well worth it and so was the wait. You may also notice the plastic covering was COMPLETELY polished, the numbers / letters were redone and the pointers were painted with the correct paint! The only thing they couldn’t fix was the trip meter reset. Every number resets except for the white one at the end, but to me that’s no big deal. I’m very excited to soon put the dashboard back together! I upgraded to an 8 track radio as well… it’s going to be one good looking dashboard!
In photos it doesn’t look bad, but we have to remember that this came out of a car that was a rat hotel for nearly 40 years! The plastic cover was cloudy / had a nasty tint to it. The script / letters were rubbing off and the pointers were faded.
I wanted to upgrade from an ammeter to a voltmeter without having a useless alternator gauge that doesn’t function and having to use an aftermarket gauge tacked on underneath the dashboard. I had done some research online and learned that Shannon Hudson and Redline could do the job! Let me just start out by saying he and the team at Redline went above and beyond with the restoration. I had the cluster completely gone through and restored!
I had the ammeter removed and in it’s place is a voltmeter. My biggest thing with this restoration was to keep the ORIGINAL look. Fuel gauge was also replaced.
The speedometer was rebuilt inside with new gears as well as being calibrated.
Lastly, I had the clock rebuilt and converted it to a quartz mechanism. I can’t wait to be able to see it working!
All in all, the price of this restoration was well worth it and so was the wait. You may also notice the plastic covering was COMPLETELY polished, the numbers / letters were redone and the pointers were painted with the correct paint! The only thing they couldn’t fix was the trip meter reset. Every number resets except for the white one at the end, but to me that’s no big deal. I’m very excited to soon put the dashboard back together! I upgraded to an 8 track radio as well… it’s going to be one good looking dashboard!