fordman wrote:collecting parts is a diesease. i had it. and im getting it again i think. my place is full of parts in the house in the garage in the yard. i have stuff in covered pickup bed trailers. its all going very soon. im going to get internet on a sunday and post every bit of it on ebay. then no more colleting shiny stuff for me.
abyars111 I will keep you in mind I have a F500 cluster coming should be here in a couple days. I'm going to restore it. Its one of the chrome ones you don't see much of. That wil give me two complete setups with an entire set of extra gauges. I'm going to take pictures of the restoration process and post them
I just hope the chrome polishes out as good as the first one I did. If anybody could tell me how to prep crhome to be painted and last let me know. Thanks
I've always been a buyer not a seller but I'm trying to change my ways before my wife starts throughing things out.
i think to paint over chrome you have to have a rough surface to let the paint adhere to. which possibly means sanding the chrome to rough it up. i dont like painting chrome.
Here's pics of my new cluster a before and after. Its just temporarily put back together. I still have to install the blinker wiring and flasher since these clusters did not come with them. I also have to paint the argent silver and black rings on the bezel doe anybody like just the solid chrome look.
69Ford wrote:Here's one Painted and one all Chrome.
Maybe I'm just dense but I'm having a hard time telling which is painted and which is chrome is this pic, top or bottom? And is that the Argent Silver? I've tried the spray can chrome and it looks good but doesn't hold up to handling well. If the Argent Silver looks that good, I may have to reevaluate.
Randy
1970 F100 Sport Custom Limited LWB, 302cid, 3 on the tree. NO A/C, NO P/S, NO P/B. Currently in 1000 pcs while rebuilding. Project thread: http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... 22&t=59995 Plan: 351w, C4, LSD, pwr front disc, p/s, a/c, bucket seats, new interior and paint.
1987 F-150 XLT Lariat, 5.0/C6 auto.
Here's a better picture of the argent silver bezel and the paint I use is motorcraft argent silver here's a pic of the can. If memory serves me right I bought the paint of Ebay. This paint seems to hold up very well. Just the background and maybe a quarter of the way across the top is painted. All of the high spots stay chrome. a lot of time masking the circles. I almost forgot the black rings are a thin vinyl with adhesive backing bought at Hobby Lobby I cut out with a makeshift compass and Exacto blade.
I really like the orange gauge needles in those two clusters. All the ones I've seen had white needles on the gauges. Do you know the years of those two clusters?
Anthony
1970 F250 Crew Cab 2wd 390/2v short bed
2004 Eddie Bauer Expedition
1955 Chevy 210 4dr Sedan
My clusters are pre 70. In 1970 Ford changed the bezel and gauges. I'll see if I can find some pics of post 70 clusters. Also Ford in 70 did not go to the circuit board in the F500 clusters like they did in our trucks stayed with wiring harness. I Don't know anything about the circuit board clusters as I never had one. The Post 70 clusters were also chromed but ford did away with argent silver background and went to a black background. Ford's base line trucks had the bezels painted
solid white Pre 70. Notice the wiper switch is located in the post 70 bezel.
Last edited by 69Ford on Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ok I messed one of my speedometers up. I wanted to clean the face of it up but did not want to get anything in to the workings so I used windex on a Qtip Don't do this it takes the numbers off. live and learn.
Here's a pic of the parts ready to go back together not the speedometer I ruined. The wiring harness still has to be modified to go into an F100. I use parts from an F100 harness and end up making my own harness. when done it looks factory and plug and play. I have one made up if someone wants a pic. I will be adding LED's lights and electronic flasher setup. When done I will have about $120 into this cluster not including labor or part removed from parts clusters. It will have the chrome bezel from above.
Last edited by 69Ford on Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Randy
1970 F100 Sport Custom Limited LWB, 302cid, 3 on the tree. NO A/C, NO P/S, NO P/B. Currently in 1000 pcs while rebuilding. Project thread: http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... 22&t=59995 Plan: 351w, C4, LSD, pwr front disc, p/s, a/c, bucket seats, new interior and paint.
1987 F-150 XLT Lariat, 5.0/C6 auto.
