Dashboard Refurbishment

[Alan Hart]

Hi

I'm just about to take delivery of a new burr walnut dashboard for my MK1 ... what I would like to do is to modify the instruments in the main panel so that they have chrome bezels - I'm after a classic 60's look to the cockpit - with Mota-Lita wheel, Motorola stereo etc ...

I've done this before on my MGB GT (yes, got an MG as well ... but maybe I should keep quiet about it!) and the results were fantastic ... but I wanted to know if anyone else had attempted changing the bezels like this before on a Stag?

Cheers

[jbuckl]

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Polish the matt/satin black paint off to reveal the already chromed bezels.

Hope thats what you were looking for?

[Alan Hart]

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Wow ...

Really - the bezels are already chromed and then painted over - excuse my ignorance but I wonder why they were done that way - surely simpler just to paint?

Many thanks

Cheers!

[Chris810]

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The all chrome bezel look is very nice but drive the car in the sunshine ( not available in this country ) with the top down and you will soon see why they were matt black!

[Mark S]

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I "chromed" my bezels when I veneered the dash. It really looks the part with burr walnut. The only part I didn't do was the centre of the warning light cluster.

I haven't had a problem with sun dazzling me, but I only did it last winter! Suffered this problem with the VW steering wheel badge in a hire Polo we had a few years ago and it was very annoying.

The best method I foundwas to twist off the bezels, then remove the paint with celly thinners before polishing. DON'T try this with the bezels in place as the thinners will creep behind the glass. The smaller gauges are sealed with some sort of rubbery foam gasket, buta pair of grippy gloves will overcome this. The "glass" in the front reset speedo is plastic so beware. The difference in appearence is remarkableonce the back of the glass is cleaned afterthirty years.

A shame that thesecret is out. I was going to start selling chrome bezels at £50 a set on EBay!

I did find that the quality of chrome on the speedo& tacho of my'76 dolomitespares car is better than the '75 Stag ones though.

Mark.

[Mark S]

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Alan Hart wrote:

Wow ...

Really - the bezels are already chromed and then painted over - excuse my ignorance but I wonder why they were done that way - surely simpler just to paint?

Many thanks

Cheers!

MkII bezels have the paint rubbed off the outer ring to give the part chromed look.

Mark.

[DJT]

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Mark S wrote:

The smaller gauges are sealed with some sort of rubbery foam gasket

For info, I used suitably-sized 'o'-ring for this. Can't remember the guage, but I got it in a length, cut it to size and glued the ends together with superglue to form the ring. Just cleaned out the old crumbly-rubber gunge and put back together with the 'o'-ring after respraying bezels with satin black.

Dave