White face guages

Well, as I promised some time ago, if I had some guages to fool with, I'd work on some white-face guages. Thanks to Chuck's kindness, I got some guages, and I've been doing just that...

BUT... this is the toughest conversion I've ever dealt with. OK, it's only the second, but converting a BMW is a cakewalk compared to this. Here's the problems:
1. You're almost guaranteed of destroying at least one guage, or at least knocking it out of whack when you take them apart, and you have to take them apart.
2. Depth: Smith guages are set back, especially the secondary guages. Which means the faces would have to be painted white before the new faces were put on.
3. Layers: The secondary guages have two layers, which means you'd essentially have to do TWO conversions for the guage, and get it all to look good.
4: How to actually stick it on. I'm thinking printing to an adhesive paper/vinyl might work, but I'm going to look into some sort of decal/letraset deal. Either way, it's going to take some exacting x-acto work.

All of this stuff can be overcome, and it CAN work, but it will take a crazy amount of patience and care.

So, with that said, is anyone still interested? If not, I'll throw this experiment by the wayside and move onto something else. If so, I'll keep pluggin along.

Here's a low-res version of what I've done so far:

Let's try that link again:

Third time's a charm:

I think I'd clean up the fuel guage by leaving off the "unleaded Fuel Only" since that's all you can get now.

Well, that'd be easy enough to do.

I had a set of SW "wings" style white face gages in the '75. Looked pretty good and you could actually see them at night. When the gages go on the GT I'll put these in, tach is on it's way south now.

Look realy neat! Believe I'd leave the kg/cm2 off as well

The question remains though... is anyone crazy enough to actually try this? As for me, I like the black ones just fine... if no one is actually going to try it, I'm going to stop working on it... if someone's willing to give it a go, then I'll go ahead with it.

Oh yeah, thought of another problem: The needles are off-white. You'd have to do something about that, too.

Painting the needles is not a big deal-a piece of paper with a slot cut to clear the shaft and a spray can of any color you want. Installing the new face is where the problem will be. Removing the needle and reinstalling them back in the right position will be a challange

Yup. I broke one needle getting them off (Note... twist, don't pull)... if you put them on out of whack, you're hosed. The secondary guages are much easier on that front.

we have a little device to pull the needles on pressure and other gauges at work when we calibrate them. I'll take a pic of it next time I'm there alone. I'd bet Gerry could make one

There are companies that do just what you want....Nisonger is converting a set of V12 Jaguar instruments for my V8...& putting "Magnolia" faces on them!

Nah, I don't want 'em. There was a conversation a while back about 'em, and since I'd done the conversion before on a BMW I volunteered to make 'em up so anyone can do 'em at home. Well, the "anyone can do it" idea got a little tougher, as Smiths guages really don't like to be re-faced... That's why I'm asking if there's interest, cause if there's not, I'm going to drop it. If there is, I'll keep going and make up the rest with a tutorial of sorts, and put the whole mess out there somewhere for download.

If you do it send it to me for my website

Like this, Chuck?

Sure Chuck, absolutely. I guess I'll go ahead and mod the other ones, slap together a how-to strongly urging folks NOT to do it, then let the chips fall where they may. To me, it's just not worth it. Then again, I LIKE the stock guages.

You might be hard pressed to come up with anything handmade that will stay good looking for long. Beware of anything printed that isn't heat and sun-fast...

pretty much but we have a couple of slightly different styles

Bax, if it makes you feel better, I like white face gauges and would love to convert a set for my 72B. Been wondering just how to do it so it looks good and lasts

My suggestion would be to use that stuff the print signs on!! They tend to hold the white and the colors really good!! I bet you already knew that, right Bax??? :o)

Kim, I've been pondering that one myself. On the Beemer, it was easy... one sheet of paper, you could LAMINATE the thing if you wanted, then put the binnacle back together... the Smiths are tricky little guys that are going to resist all efforts to do.

Which is why I'm thinking the best bet will be some sort of letraset/decal transfer deal, which I haven't seriously looked into yet. Luckily, the late guages (which is all I have to work with anyway) used some variant of Helvetica, so if I have to redo them from scratch font matching won't be a problem. I think I've got about 30 variations on Helvetica alone roaming 'round the drive.
I was staring at the '70 guages today thinking to myself... man, I'll never match that font. Closest I could even think of was MAYBE serpentine after you spent way more time than you'd want tweaking it.

Ever see the gauge faces that are white on black (or similar light on dark combo) and reverse when illuminated? (a la Nissan Maxima, Dodge Intrepid... I am sure there are many others...)

I realize this increases the degree of difficulty, but it might be more palatable to people who want to maintain a stock look and have better gauge visibility at night.

Just thinking...

John, I believe those use some sort of backlighting with some sort of special guage face material. Virtually impossible from a DIY standpoint, I think. It's going to be hard enough modding the existing metal faces.