66 Barracuda Gauge cluster repainting

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Vic Storm

Vic Storm

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I was wondering if you all would show your stock gauge inserts, mine is in total dyer straights and needs serious repainting. Has anybody had any experiance redoing thiers and would you all mind showing them off. I need some help deciding how to repaint it so it looks good. Let me see your early A body gauge inserts please, thanks.
 
heres mine,cleaned gauge faces with armor all sanded and painted plastic bezel with duplicolor cleaned glass with auto wax and did the chrome with vinyl "chrome" from a sign shop,trimmed it with exacto knife.I have seen white gauge face stickers on e bay,they might have the kits in black,and did my gauge needles with testors "hemi orange"

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lil valiant dash.JPG


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Need the big one for the gas pedal,hopefully one will find me Lol,Iv'e had the lil' one forever,it's the last remaining piece of my first car
 
Wish i had a better pic,i painted mine with Duplicolor semi gloss black and
gun metal grey metallic.Sprayed the gunmetal down then black over it and back again giving it kind of a marbelized look.Have to do all 3 pieces of the dash at the same time so they all match.

If you want spray "chrome" that doesnt turn colors when touched try Krylon
DH1606 ceramic paint.Actually looks more like aluminum.

Sanded and polished the lenses,to remove use a dremel and grind out the plastic they use to melt in place,use epoxy when putting back together.Alot
of the glues out there will fog the lenses while drying.

baracuda6.jpg
 
Here are some pics of a 65 bezel I gave a makeover that was trashed. Removed all old paint,sanded & repainted with duplicolor grey then chrome. Final pic is before re-installing clear plastic bezels, wetsanding , polishing & touchup around bezels but shows dramatic difference on a budget.

Oldschoolcuda
 
waggin said:
heres mine,cleaned gauge faces with armor all sanded and painted plastic bezel with duplicolor cleaned glass with auto wax and did the chrome with vinyl "chrome" from a sign shop,trimmed it with exacto knife.I have seen white gauge face stickers on e bay,they might have the kits in black,and did my gauge needles with testors "hemi orange"
Click to expand...

Wow! That looks great! So your telling me the chrome is actually vinyl?
 
Well here is mine I just painted it for now. Would like to get it repalated but just short on funds. My alternator gauge is really a voltmeter gauge as I took the face plate off of a voltmeter and put on the 66 barracuda gauge. I used the whole dash out of a 66 barracuda and put in my 66 dart wagon as I had to rewired it anyway.

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Picture 609 (Large).jpg


Picture 632 (Medium).jpg
 
Nice dash work guys, dart64gt is that some kind of beading in the black groove? As you can see mine is in really rough shape, did you use a stripper there oldschoolcuda?

reduced dash pic.jpg
 
Oldschoolcuda said:
Here are some pics of a 65 bezel I gave a makeover that was trashed. Removed all old paint,sanded & repainted with duplicolor grey then chrome. Final pic is before re-installing clear plastic bezels, wetsanding , polishing & touchup around bezels but shows dramatic difference on a budget.

Oldschoolcuda
Click to expand...

What did you use to remove the old paint? I'll probably repaint one from my 67 and would like to remove all the old paint before I start on it.
 
Used a general purpose cleaner called superclean. This stuff is amazing and won't damage plastic(Got this tip from a modeling buddy).Can purchase at the auto section of walmart. Let part soak in a sealed container of superclean at least overnight.This will loosen the coating up & you can just brush crap off then rinse with water & dry. Repeat if needed.

Oldschoolcuda
 
Here's a pic of my uncle's '66 cuda dash. It's been rechromed, repainted and the gauge lens have been polished.

Hope it helps you out.

Mark

cuda050011mod.jpg
 
Yeppers,each facet has to be cut to fit,then trimmed,I did the seams in inconspicuous places and its hard to tell after installed,I dampen a soft cloth with windex for cleaning,last a long time even in the florida sun.I also did the center grill of my car to get a custom look,heres pic's of my 11 year old laying down the strips I had the sign shop cut for me,the dash bezel had to be done by hand.I painted the grille sem trim black first then let steven try his hand at laying down the strip's on the grille.he's seen me lay out flames before and I have let him loose on old sheet metal with spray bomb's and a lil' instruction.
QWK FSH said:
Wow! That looks great! So your telling me the chrome is actually vinyl?
Click to expand...

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Good stuff! Way to go letting your kid get invloved!
 
I had my 66 dash cluster done by CV Vacuum and have no complaints, very nice work. Still sitting in the box since I'm not at that the installation stage yet.They were very nice to work with and will answer any questions or concerns you may have. Delivery was around four weeks.
 
I am out of town and won't be back home until Saturday, If you can wait I don't mind telling what CV charged. I had the whole front re-done including the heater/ac control plate. Also had the arm rest bottoms done front and back.
 
I dis-assembled mine completely, and painted it with something I bought at Advance Auto Parts. I then hand detailed all of the black trim. I did not try to duplicate the chrome trim around the edges. I think it turned out just fine. However, I would be interested in finding out about the "vinyl chrome" that waggin used on his cluster.

66CudaDash001.jpg
 
That looks great, how are you all getting them together, are you reheating the plastic? Did you repaint the insides of the gauges alsp, it sure looks clean inside the gauges.
 
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