Rallye Dash restoration recommendations

Scoots340 said

Thanks for the advice. I was concerned about not having it look chrome if I were to attempt a repaint. I'm not sure if the gauges need recalibrating. Just paranoid about the oil pressure gauge being accurate. Is it worth getting the amp gauge changed out? My lights were flaky. There was one pin in the gauge side that had been repaired.

Click to expand...

Paint will never look like chrome. Period. A lot of people go to all kinds of trouble with the amp gauge but really, unless you're pulling 80 amps on your monster stereo, all you need to do is make sure that the connections are clean. Pull the bulkhead connector and really clean both sides. If the dash lights are flaky, it's probably the pins. It's easy to test the pins if you have the circuit board on the bench, with an ohmmeter, or a 12V source and a test lamp. But sometimes the lamp sockets are bad, too -- the brass contacts get brittle and crack where they are supposed to be providing spring tension. Just replace them. I doubt the gauges need "recalibrating". They either work or they don't. If the fuel and temp don't work, it is because the voltage regulator built into the fuel gauge has failed. But you can add an external voltage regulator like the non-rally-dash cars had — you don't have to actually do anything to the fuel gauge, unless it has burnt itself out due to over-voltage in the meantime (test it with 5V). The oil pressure gauge doesn't use the voltage regulator, so if it responds at all, it is as accurate as it is going to get. I mean, there aren't any numbers on the face — how are you supposed to judge accuracy? Somewhere in the middle or higher = good.