69 Barracuda Dash Bezel
Conquer the knobs and bezel nuts, leave those switches in the car. If you bolt the 2 ALT' gauge wires together, zip tie the climate controller up, and re-bolt the steering column, you can move the car, even drive it without a inst' panel for a while if necessary. Been there done that. Took about 10 minutes to make a couple supports for the headlight switch and wiper switch. [o O]
Separate the center cones from the lenses first, before separating the lenses from the bezel. If you accidentally let your soldering iron touch and ruin a lens while going at one of those perimeter stakes... you wouldn't be the first or third to do that. Just be careful. Don't remove the black masking from the perimeter of the lenses when polishing.
If you have a trip clock in the speedometer and that little knob wont unscrew, there's a way to conquer that too. Just remove the 2 screws holding the speedometer in the housing. Once the speedometer is exposed you can hold that stem and unscrew the knob. Maybe go ahead and reinstall the speedometer to housing so you don't loose that rubber isolator between them.
There's almost 1/8 clearance between the plastic bezel and the pot metal housing most anywhere you look. So you can place a scab/reinforcement behind cracks and breaks. It is ABS plastic so the glue for plastic plumbing works. That is a very strong chemical bond.
I use a plastic welder since I modify the bezels ( see pic ). The little sanding blocks from Dollar Tree meant for finger nails provide all the small pieces of various grits that I need to get back to OEM finish.
If you were dismantling the bezel completely for rechrome you would need to remove the 2 green lenses which is a little tricky but there is a way. If you need to replace the 2 gaskets at the red lenses, you'll whittle those out by hand. The gaskets at green lenses are good examples. DO NOT USE SUPER GLUE at these colored lenses.
Sticky? maybe, since there isn't better available but.... It's a one off. After you've done a bunch of them, you learn better. Did you notice the title says 67 yet the subject is 68 or 69? Anyway...
Conquer the knobs and bezel nuts, leave those switches in the car. If you bolt the 2 ALT' gauge wires together, zip tie the climate controller up, and re-bolt the steering column, you can move the car, even drive it without a inst' panel for a while if necessary. Been there done that. Took about 10 minutes to make a couple supports for the headlight switch and wiper switch. [o O]
Separate the center cones from the lenses first, before separating the lenses from the bezel. If you accidentally let your soldering iron touch and ruin a lens while going at one of those perimeter stakes... you wouldn't be the first or third to do that. Just be careful. Don't remove the black masking from the perimeter of the lenses when polishing.
If you have a trip clock in the speedometer and that little knob wont unscrew, there's a way to conquer that too. Just remove the 2 screws holding the speedometer in the housing. Once the speedometer is exposed you can hold that stem and unscrew the knob. Maybe go ahead and reinstall the speedometer to housing so you don't loose that rubber isolator between them.
There's almost 1/8 clearance between the plastic bezel and the pot metal housing most anywhere you look. So you can place a scab/reinforcement behind cracks and breaks. It is ABS plastic so the glue for plastic plumbing works. That is a very strong chemical bond.
I use a plastic welder since I modify the bezels ( see pic ). The little sanding blocks from Dollar Tree meant for finger nails provide all the small pieces of various grits that I need to get back to OEM finish.
If you were dismantling the bezel completely for rechrome you would need to remove the 2 green lenses which is a little tricky but there is a way. If you need to replace the 2 gaskets at the red lenses, you'll whittle those out by hand. The gaskets at green lenses are good examples. DO NOT USE SUPER GLUE at these colored lenses.
