Refurbing instruments on '77 MGB

I am just taking the bezels off the instruments on my '77 roadster. I am trying to distinguish original from DPO.

The bezels have a matt spun aluminum finish with the center painted matt black. Is that the original look?

I tried to find replacement bezels but these are $12 each on Moss and ther only have them for eariler years. Do these fit? I am trying to work out if $60 spent on parts would save or create hassles.

What year are the rings bright chrome? I am not going for any degree of originality here.

The tacho has some areas where the paint has flaked off the dial. Any ideas for treatment?

Are the seals meant to be rubber o rings or just strips of rubber in a circle?

Also is the black gunk filling in the back of the bezel original or DPO?

1. Yes?
2. Yes.
3. Up to 76
4. Send to Nissonger
5. O-rings
6. Original

I recently had the glass and bezels off each one of the guages on my 77.
I personally like the look of chrome bezels and wanted to shine mine up a bit.

I took all the bezels off and used paint stripper to get the black stripe off. I have a H/F buffing wheel and attempted to polish them. I used the H/F medium rouge.
It turned out pretty good. The bezels have a textured finish to them and I didn't polish them down to where they look like chrome, but they do shine pretty good and and edges really got polished well which gives it a little sparkle.

The only problem I ran into was that the bezel on the clock doesn't come off, So it must be polished with while on, and do not get paint stripper on the clock lens. (Guess how I know) The polishing compound didn't appear to hurt the clock lens, in fact in my case it helped get out the damaged done by the stripper.

I sealed the guages back up with large o-rings I found a great local hardware store and used some black automotive silicone.

I can take a picture and post it if your intersted.

Also...be very careful working around the face of the guage. Just about anything that gets on it will leave some kind of mark, and the paint can come off in some cases pretty easily.

Hope that helps.

I found a source for the bezel rings on Ebay. I also found a regular supplier that is a lot cheaper than Moss (4GBP for the smaller rings rather than $29!):

http://www.holden.co.uk/viewProducts.asp?supergroup=Hardware&analysiscode=0613&groupname=Guages&group=070

The choice seems to be Chrome or all-black. The inner painted circle does not seem to be an option.

I still need the inner rings. one of my guages had a piece of cardboard.