broke. so I'm working on some white faced gauges for my 66 dart

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66Dvert

66Dvert

Working on my custom car parts again!
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yup momma cut my budget down to nuttin:banghead: So I'm back to working on the garage to insulate it and other things that don't cost money. One of the other things is figuring out how to white face my gauges in the 66. I have seen them for plenty of cars but never for my 66 dart. NOW I know why. there's a buttload of work involved in getting it changed over to white faces. I just got back from the sign shop and they did awesome work.. it still needs a little tweaking but
i can use this one as is! here's my progress so far.


here's the speedometer front plate I took off a broken speedo to test things out. it isn't perfect yet BUT is darn close. A couple more trieds and it should be correct.
View attachment DSCF4161.jpg


here it is in hot glued into position as a check to see how it will look.
View attachment DSCF4162.jpg

not to bad huh? I LIKE IT! I think I might want to shoot the black on the bezel a light argent to match the bottom part.... I might test that out.

here's a closeup of the speedo
View attachment DSCF4166.jpg


and here's another part of the project. darn things (temp,fuel,amp and oil light surround) will have to be hand painted. #$@
View attachment DSCF4167.jpg

still it was just as bad to do as I thought. I had to use a hand pick to remove the paint from the speedometer numbers and will have to re paint them in black. made good progress on it and do see the light at the end of the tunnel.:cheers:
 
I've always laughed at guys who say there wife cut the budget,

I say I make the money, I'll pay the bills and buy food; anything left I'm going to do what I want to lol
 
66plyValiant said:
I've always laughed at guys who say there wife cut the budget,

I say I make the money, I'll pay the bills and buy food; anything left I'm going to do what I want to lol
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Oh I don't mind so much since I keep her happy(and me too!) the bad part of this whole thing is I set up the budget to keep me in check *&^% and I'm the one that keeps on going over it. she just reminds me that I've gone over budget AGAIN.:banghead:
 
That looks great! You do good work my friend. I like the way you scraped out the paint on the speedo numbers and filled them in by hand. I will be making the white conversion on my 67 Cuda soon, so this info is much appreciated! Good luck!
 
68gtxman said:
That looks great! You do good work my friend. I like the way you scraped out the paint on the speedo numbers and filled them in by hand. I will be making the white conversion on my 67 Cuda soon, so this info is much appreciated! Good luck!
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thanks, But it ain't skill, it's stubbornness plain and simple.
one hint that worked well for me was using a fingernail brush ,soap and water to clean it mostly out. the inside letters and numbers are a water based paint and will mostly wash out. not all the way but a lot. that way you don't scratch up the lenses.

I remembered as a kid (13-15)doing some of the dash bezels for extra money during the summer. We had different types of paint to use, outside paint STUNK! inside paint didn't (or at least not as bad. ) so I went to the hobby store and opened a couple of different paints to bring back the memories of the "not stink" turns out the ACRYLIC tempra paints had the same or close to the same smell (water based) since mine is on the inside of the plastic lens I bought the tempra paint. (and found out it was lacquer paint(stinky)for the outside knobs and lettering.) oil and enamel didn't smell the same kind of bad. but I never had to UN do what I did like now.

Using Acrylic tempra paints with this process you can use a wider brush (about 1/2 inch camel hair worked for me) and wiggle it so the paint hits all the corners and then hit the top overflow with a damp cloth to clean up the yuck that will spill over the lens. don't use a paper towel it leaves tiny scratches in the lens(ask me how huh :banghead:) the paint does not leave a stain if you get it quick and then hit the whole lens with a microfiber cloth to polish it back to normal. but headlight restorer polish works to get the small scratches out. bigger ones need polishing compound to get them.
 
I installed it temporarily into the car to see how it looks. ...........hmmm not to shabby.
View attachment WP_20130926_001.jpg

I think I like it. now for the color led's in the cluster.. what color to do ..
red
white
yellow
green
orange
blue
hmmm choices. choices. Brown interior. Vanilla paint Buckskin convertible top
and boot to match the dash pad
 
hemitheus said:
is it hard to read at night?
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nope. just a crappy picture from my cell phone. it's actually a lot easier to read than the stock white letters on a black background. the orange needles just pop out at ya (and will look even better after I paint them ) I do want to get a bit more light into the dash using led's since I don't dim them at all on any car I have ever drove. I set it and forget it.
 
66plyValiant said:
I've always laughed at guys who say there wife cut the budget,

I say I make the money, I'll pay the bills and buy food; anything left I'm going to do what I want to lol
Click to expand...
its all about respect for your spouse. That being said,I make sure all the family priorities are taken care of. The rest is car money.
 
That looks real good. Nothing like comparing the 2 dashes, that's where you notice the real difference.
It puts a nice modern touch on the dash.
 
Looks great...nice work....it always amazes me how people can do really nice work on a low budget.....

On the wife topic, I would have to agree
I've always laughed at guys who say there wife cut the budget...Without my paycheck there would be nothing to budget in the first place.....

Reminds me of a funny thing a guy at work told me about his power struggle at home with his wife....LOL

One day they got into it, and he said to her "do you see those pants on the floor there?" (pointing to a pair of his jeans on the floor)......she said "Yes".....He said "well those are my pants and I where them in this family".....She said, "well do you see those pants" ( pointing to a pair of her pants on the floor)....He said , "Yes"......She said, "well you won't be getting in those pants anytime soon".....LOL
 
bbrroowwnn said:
Looks great...nice work....it always amazes me how people can do really nice work on a low budget.....

On the wife topic, I would have to agree
I've always laughed at guys who say there wife cut the budget...Without my paycheck there would be nothing to budget in the first place.....

Reminds me of a funny thing a guy at work told me about his power struggle at home with his wife....LOL

One day they got into it, and he said to her "do you see those pants on the floor there?" (pointing to a pair of his jeans on the floor)......she said "Yes".....He said "well those are my pants and I where them in this family".....She said, "well do you see those pants" ( pointing to a pair of her pants on the floor)....He said , "Yes"......She said, "well you won't be getting in those pants anytime soon".....LOL
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I've been married for 40+ years(still have a hard time with the anniversary date) but that's what organizers are for right? I have a great wife, but I do have a habit of spending too much money on my hobbies and it takes a budget to keep me under control. when I blow the budget, she reminds me that I have. Heck I'm the one who sets up my budget and I'm the one always going over budget. when we do a project for her it's always under budget, can't figure that out yet other than she just is better organized than I am. thats one of the reasons I keep her hanging around (that and it actually cheaper to keep her than get rid of her):glasses7:
 
I used these for my 73 with some modifications like taking out the individual miles out because it looked too cluttered and the dart at 60.
 

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TrailBeast said:
I used these for my 73 with some modifications like taking out the individual miles out because it looked too cluttered and the dart at 60.
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DANG !!! those look NICE did you design them? or buy them? I looked and looked for a 66 setup of decals and found out that no one makes them. it ended up just being the center part of the speedo that had to be designed for a decal. the rest is " manual labor of removing white letters,painting the white background and painting the bars on the gauges. time consuming but easier than I thought(of course the center section with the speed gradient SUCKED getting it designed and lined up) but 20 or so tries later it works. now that I have saved the design I can redo it as necessary. DARN square gauges!
 
66Dvert said:
DANG !!! those look NICE did you design them? or buy them? I looked and looked for a 66 setup of decals and found out that no one makes them. it ended up just being the center part of the speedo that had to be designed for a decal. the rest is " manual labor of removing white letters,painting the white background and painting the bars on the gauges. time consuming but easier than I thought(of course the center section with the speed gradient SUCKED getting it designed and lined up) but 20 or so tries later it works. now that I have saved the design I can redo it as necessary. DARN square gauges!
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I downloaded them from somewhere, then modified them.
They sure can eat up a lot of time.

I am going to have to redo the speedometer because whe it's damp out it swells and stops the needle from moving because it's done with photo paper.
I'll have to print new ones on plastic next time.
 
TrailBeast said:
I downloaded them from somewhere, then modified them.
They sure can eat up a lot of time.

I am going to have to redo the speedometer because whe it's damp out it swells and stops the needle from moving because it's done with photo paper.
I'll have to print new ones on plastic next time.
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in the very first picture you can see the vinyl wrap that I had done after I designed it.
If you've got the drawing and can convert it to AUTOCAD (or vector art where you can edit just nodes in the drawing) you can take it to a vinyl sign place and they can put(print it in waterproof ink) it on a vinyl Wrap plastic that is super thin and moldable (sp?)so that it lays down nice and smooth.heck you can even faintly see the slight bumps of the original while lines to help in alignment. that's what I did for mine since mine is awful close to the needle too!
 
Dan Chase340 said:
66Dvert, that is looking real good. Might do that to the 67 Valiant.:cheers:
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I think they make a decal set for the 67's but am not sure.
check out this link. ti says 67 to 70 and shows round and square type gauges

if you have to do it from scratch .... well be prepared to spend some time getting it right. I had to remove a speedo back plate(first picture) scan it in with a flatbed scanner, open the picture and trace the lines in autocad, scale it correctly (multiple tries on that one):banghead: then print it out on clear ummm over head projector slide sheets(the things that people used to make and then put on a light projector to shine on the wall or screen for business meetings) then compare to the original and adjust as necessary. for some reason it never scales right the first ohhh 10 or so times. your always close but just a little off. then you get to print it on vinyl. (or a sign shop does) mkae sure you have it in vector graphic's that the sign shop can use(ask them what they need) my little piece cost $20.00 to print, took him 3 tries to get it right on scale too! I've got about 20 hours on just the decal graphic's and another 6 hours on the paint for the gauge faces and painting the lines on them. but it was the first one and I'm sure I can shave another hours or so of of the painting and such. I am going to load up my inkjet printer, order the waterproof black ink and get some decal paper, print the speedo lines and clear coat it so I can try to match the vinyl and see which I like better. IF the decal works/looks the same or better it can all be done "ingarage" I.E. Cheaper, less time and I can do it all!
 
66plyValiant said:
I've always laughed at guys who say there wife cut the budget,

I say I make the money, I'll pay the bills and buy food; anything left I'm going to do what I want to lol
Click to expand...

AMEN! My wife tries to do the same thing to me and I laugh at her. What I find now is that if she see's I bought something for the car I then have to spend money on her. So now I just have the parts delivered to work. :D
 
66Dvert said:
in the very first picture you can see the vinyl wrap that I had done after I designed it.
If you've got the drawing and can convert it to AUTOCAD (or vector art where you can edit just nodes in the drawing) you can take it to a vinyl sign place and they can put(print it in waterproof ink) it on a vinyl Wrap plastic that is super thin and moldable (sp?)so that it lays down nice and smooth.heck you can even faintly see the slight bumps of the original while lines to help in alignment. that's what I did for mine since mine is awful close to the needle too!
Click to expand...

For some reason I didn't even think of that.
I know places through my work that do it even. DUH



71Scamper said:
AMEN! My wife tries to do the same thing to me and I laugh at her. What I find now is that if she see's I bought something for the car I then have to spend money on her. So now I just have the parts delivered to work. :D
Click to expand...

I had to get my own Paypal account so the money I have in there can only be used for my car :D

Recently I used my Paypal money to buy all new poly suspension, and after 2 days of work doing all of it she told me that it was my birthday gift. :violent1: :D

I told her that she could save up some money of her own and have all the landscaping redone (which she wants pretty badly) buy all the materials and do all the labor so that could be her birthday present. :finga:

My car HAS to run and be drivable every day, or we don't make money.
 
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