How to restor Gauges?

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Ian Fawbert

Hi guys,

I`m in the middle of doing the guagres for my jeep and being the round type, i thought i would chime in on a few things i have learnt/done seen.

Lynn, the jeeps did use Stewart Warner guages. As a rule of thumb, Willys used Autolite, Ford used SW (with some mixes during contracts). The speedo as you correctly said was different in some cases, ranging from SW, Autolite, King Seeley and Motometer- all depending on model and year of MB or GPW and all with different features- needle shape, milage increments, face shape, text, fonts. Military AC guages in jeeps are non factory fitted- they are replacements.

Mike, as for the needles i know exactly what you mean about them flying off! I lost the needle for my early GPW's speedo- the early GPW speedo's are hard enough to find so getting another needle would have been a nightmare! I ended up finding it at the bottom of a tub of scrap steel in the corner of the shed under the bench. It took me a good 1 1/2 hours to find it!

In regards to getting the bezel off, i made a small tool which looks kind of like a can opener. I find its not a damaging to the bezel as a screwdriver was. As a tip, i also start at the bottom of the guage and work my way up/around- you dont need to go all the way round to get the bezel off, so when abit over half way it should pop/slide off. Thus when you put it back on, any pry marks are located at the bottom where they are harder to see/not as visible.

In regards to removing faces which are riveted on, i used a dremel (or similar small grinder) to remove the back of the rivet. Then it can be pushed out and face taken off. Mr faces are being done at the moment and when finished i will just pop the rivets back in and i intend to use some glue type substance on the back to hold them in place/stop them falling out and the face coming loose.


Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Ian.

Ian..
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