Gauges

The gauges of the car were in very bad shape. The long neglect let the sun fade the scales and the wind blow anormous amount of dust into the precious mechanical structures. Good news that there was not much moisure so the rust did not took too much toll.

As removed from the car. Right side soda blasted.

Not a nice site, is it? But this is what we call challenge!

First dismantled the gauges.

Dial faces were sent to a specialist to get them repainted.

Which they did professionaly.

Painting and rechroming.

The mechanics were cleaned in a special solution ultrasonicaly.

Whichafter  they were dipped in alcohol.

Dried carefully with a special tool, borowed from the Wife :-).

And quickly dipped into another anticorrosive/penetrating solution.

 The housings were fine glass powder blasted, other parts replated, painted as per original.

Special lubriant developed for watches was applied where needed.

 With some help if necessary :-).

Each gauges were tested.

Switches

The swithes are precious items, with production date stamped in them. in order to make a good restoration, they should be saved if only possible. 

The most interesting task of the restoration of the gauges was the counter face rebuild. The numbers faded badly during the decades nder the sky, soo something had to be done. Reprinting the scale with the original method proved to be impossible, soo we decided to use another technic, with good results.

Gearbox and overdrive

Slideshow

Although when we removed the cover of the gearbox, the content looked quite well preserved, the drive was seized.

The parts were mostly in good condition, but for some not that obvious reasons, the 2nd gear rusted onto the shaft solid. This kind of well localised rust is usualy due to electrolic corrosion potential of the materials.

Whatever caused the problem, it must not be left like that. First we measured the depth of the surface hardening. It turned out to be quite thick, nearly 1 mm.

Then we regrinded the shaft and the gear.

And installed +0.5mm needle rollers.

Cleaning was straight foreward.

Just like checking all shafts for straightness.

Then we replaced all bearings

Each oil seals.

Balls at various positions.

Regrinded the oil sealing  faces.

The overdrive only needed new balls for the valves. Othervise it was in great condition beneath the oil mud.

Now the finished box is waiting for the duty to come.