Charlie

Well I thought I would post this for those doing the repair. I know Clark's has a method as do several people. I have owned several of these cars over the years and have used foil, chrome tape, Strathmore Chromalox, chrome and aluminum paint, and led prism replacement. I think I have found a method that might work best.

You start by removing the cluster and cleaning the prisms with non-acetone nail polish remover. I use Q-tips and take my time and remove practically all the paint on the exposed prism. I don't remove the prism from the cluster.

Next I have found a product that I think will work really well and that is Rust-oleum Mirror Effect paint. Krylon has a similar product. Instructions say to create a mirror effect you spray it on the reverse side of the glass which is what we want. I sprayed 4 or 5 light coats to get a good thick coating. The first picture shows the back (reverse) side of a prism on the left sprayed with Mirror Effect and the prism on the right sprayed with Dupli-Color Chrome. They look very similar.

The second picture shows the two prisms flipped over. It is hard to tell in the pictures but the Mirror Effect prism is more reflective than the chrome one on the right. My experience has been using the chrome and aluminum paint in the past is the front side would be reflective but the back was more dull. I had always wished the back side had been as reflective as the front. I think the Mirror Effect will solve that problem. Don't know if the product will last as long as the original coating, time will tell.



I used LED bulbs. I think filament bulbs would have worked well also. For those using LED bulbs the bottom side of the circuit board at the light socket is the + side.

JWebber

Update once you get it all back together . I have to pull my cluster to fix the odometer and that would be prime time to take care of the lighting . By the way , what is the part number for those led bulbs ?

Charlie

these are the bulbs I bought

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...07137&_sacat=0


If the link doesn't work try item number 201331107137

Charlie

Just checked it out and it is bright. I think it looks great. It will dim just a small amount. One of my cars has the LED Prism kit and comparing them the look is very similar. I would take a picture but when I turn the flash off the camera goes into some kind of time exposure mode?

Some make think it is too bright. I'm sure you could find bulbs that would make it dimmer, 194 filament bulbs would be good to try.

Jfrahm

I do not recommend painting the prisms on the cluster, some metallic paint dust finds it's way into the cluster and onto the back of the clear cover, as well as other places.

I've used the same paint on them to good effect, just popped them off first and glued them back on later. It's easy.

I do not recommend the LED conversion unless you also have a really good PWM control for brightness, it's important to be able to dim the panel for night driving, particularly in bad weather and to save your vision for seeing what's going on outside the car.

Also avoid higher wattage bulbs like the W5W as they can melt the sockets.

-Joel.