Peter,
I just cleaned the six gauges in my TR3. I don't know if they're the same as on
the 6 but I bet they're similar. In my case I'm disassembling the whole car so
the comparison isn't so direct, but what I can tell you is that they were all
equally dusty inside, and all look like a million bucks now. In addition to the
glass needing cleaning, one of the needles (ammeter?) was beginning to show a
bit of rust. I applied white-out and it looks fine. On my car, the gauges don't
receive bulbs for illumination; rather, they have a translucent ring through
which the light shines from the bulb mounted nearby in the back of the
dashboard. These rings all needed cleaning too.
The chrome ring holding the glass in is removed the same way on the small ones
as on the speedo and tach, with a slight turn and a pull, however I'd recommend
removing the gauges from the car where practical because it may take a fair bit
of elbow grease to get them off and it's handy to be able to turn them over for
more leverage etc. In some cases I also bent the three tabs out a bit to make
the rings easier to rotate. The rubber tends to get soft and turn into something
more like caulking - it really holds on.
On Saturday I returned to the box (which was sitting opened on the basement
floor) where the new-looking gauges were awaiting reinstallation into the
newly-wrinkle-painted dash, only to discover that the cats had found another use
for said box. I was rather disappointed in their lack of toilet training, and
did even go so far as to mention it to their owner, very politely of course.
My big problem now is finding replacement light bulbs for dash illumination.
They are a screw-in style, 12v, 2.2 w bulb. Do you know of a source? The
Canadian Tire guy insisted on asking me what model of car my sample was from ,
and when I told him Triumph, he asked if that was a Ford. Once again I asked
myself why I subject myself to such abuse, over and over.....
Regards,
Jim Wallace, Ottawa
'60 TR3a
TS81417
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
From: Peter Zaborski <peterz@merak.com>
Subject: tr6 gauges
"... Although they looked nice in the daylight, it was only in the
darkness that I realized what a huge difference the clean glass has made.
The tach and speedo look just great illuminated by the normal gauge lighting
(something often lamented by many owners as being totally inadequate - I say
not true, with clean gauges the lighting is great!).
Of course now the illumination of the other gauges sucks big time when
compared to the freshly cleaned speedo and tach. I am therefore very tempted
to do the same with the smaller gauges. Of course they are going to be
somewhat harder to remove. What I'm looking for are tips from those who have
removed the smaller gauges on a TR6 on how to make this task easier. I need
only to remove the glass and trim ring so I probably won't need to
disconnect the leads (or oil line). I don't want to dismantle any more than
I need to.
Any insights appreciated greatly!
- --- Peter Zaborski CF58310UO Calgary,Canada ---
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