haygeebaby

Thanks to user "Full Boost" I now have a nice set of white face gauges. Problem is I'm finding it real hard to get the front bezel off without damaging the back of the bezel.

Does anyone have any tips of getting the bezel out without doing major damage to it ?

Also - any tips on getting the needles off ?

TIA

Ken

Roche993

I also would like to thank Full Boost and am wondering the same thing. Although I only have to do the Tach and change the needle to a different position with the redline at 12 o'clock. I have read about the two spoon trick for the needles, take your time, and "its easy- but not for the faint of heart". Any tips from someone that has gone through this already?

AOW162435

There's not much on the 993 that I'll shy away from repairing, refreshing, etc. That said, I've tried to remove bezels in the past and stopped short of smashing the entire instrument in my vice.

For my needs, I send the instruments to North Hollywood Speedometer. They come back looking better than when I sent them, and the bezels are never scratched, dinged, bent, etc. Over the last 5 years, I've sent more than 100 964/993 clocks to them for one reason or another. At a bare minimum, each needed the bezel removed & replaced.


Andreas

Jeff96-993

Get some dental pick tools and go for it. I put a white gage face on my tach, with redline at 12:00. Nice look.

I was scared at the start, so much that I bought a used tach to do the upgrade on. The original tach is stored comfortably in the basement. If I screwed up the replacement I would've shipped it off like Andreas, and still had the original while it was gone.

axl911

Wrap the bezel with duct or some kind of durable tape. You don't want to scratch the paint of them and ruin the look of the gauge when you are prying the bezel off.

Roche993

Thanks Jeff and Andreas for the suggestions.
I think I will go for it. If I can stay away from the dead blow mallet and vice grips on this one, I should have sucess.
Jeff, do you happen to have the OBC with your tach? My only concern with that setup is will the needle bother me as it passes through the OBC readout from say 2-3K rpms. I use the digital speedometer almost exclusively and I wonder if it will annoy me. I've already driven around with it taped to the existing tach and I kind of like only the center guage white and the rest black. My car is white, too.

Sorry for the mini hijack, Ken.

Any more tips?

Jeff96-993

I don't have OBC, so didn't have to worry about it. And yes, the needle would be right in front of the display for typical cruising RPM's.

I also used the duct tape trick to keep the dental picks from scratching the ring. Getting started is the hardest part, once you get it lifted at one spot the rest of the way around is easier.

AOW162435

When I attempted this on a broken 993 clock, not only did the back of the aluminum bezel have tons of ridges from prying, but I found it almost impossible to then crimp it tight when re-installing. The white plastic housing underneath gives way, compounding the issue.

Just my experience though.


Andreas

axl911

Use a pick to get one spot of the bezel edge up. Work it a bit more. Then use your smallest flat screw driver to get the rest of the bezel.

Place the bezel on the table. Put the portion of the bezel where you will be prying out at the bottom or surface of the table. Do this so when you pry the bezel edge, the surface of the table will stop the tool from excessively bending the bezel edge outward.

Keep working small portion at a time and a bit at a time.

Shahrams

I would follow Andreas recommendation, even if you remove the bazel successfully, removing all the 8 needles Will be even more fun. they don't come of easy every time and you never know the right position when you put them back even if you would mark the position when you remove them. specially the tach and the speedo!
And last but not least, putting back the bazel and pressing the edge down w/o looking like crap is another hassle. Send them to NH and they will do it the right way.

curve lover

Ken, if you haven't seen the below-linked do-it-yourself tutorial(s), you may find helpful info & pix there from a RLer who did similar surgery. He has sections on 'Bezel ring removal' + 'Needle removal and calibration,' & much more.
Contacting some of the RLers directly who posted on the "White Gauges" thread may answer more questions, from those that have done this themselves.
Good luck; the end product should rock

jaa1

+1 on hollywood speedo

Paul M

Has anybody tried finding a source for the 104mm bezel by itself? Even if you couldn't get an absolutely perfect, tight seal at home, using a brand new bezel instead of re-using the chewed up old one has got to be a better solution.

I see FVD offer older gauge bezels for the pre '89 cars and the 80mm bezels for the later cars, but not the speedo bezel...

http://www.fvd.de/us/fr/Porsche-0/-/...he_Tuning.html

I guess VDO won't sell the bezels to joe public, but maybe the instrument repair places would?

AOW162435

I'm Joe Public, and I've spent thousands of dollars with North Hollywood Speedometer over the years. Many of the clocks I've sent in have needed new bezels, and the cost for each was quite a bit. I was told recently that these are no longer available from VDO, and as such, NHS has a very limited supply left.

I have a few spare bezels that I've bead blasted, primed, and painted in the correct semi-gloss black. When I get a damaged clock, I'll enclose the refinished bezel and ask NHS to return the scratched one. And so the cycle continues.


Andreas

haygeebaby

Thanks for the replies gents. All that information was handy and now I can share my experience with future generations who want to attempt this DIY.

Thoughts in hindsight:

This is by far the most stressful DIY I've done on the car. Not for the faint of heart is so true. But if you get the hang of it after the first one then the others are generally easy.

I live in Aus - but if you are in USA - send the gauges to North Hollywood like Andreas said. The time and money spent is well worth not having the stress and potential cost of replacing a damaged gauge. Anyone know how much they charge for the job ?

There is a good DIY on P-car like Jager said - I think the additional info I add here will compliment it and give others a little more confidence in trying the DIY.

Duct tape around the bezel idea from axl911 is a good idea. Saved me a few times when I was using a microline screw driver. But try to use tape that doesn't leave sticky residue.


Ok - here's what I learnt:

I found the clock was the easiest to complete. You may want to start with that to get the hang of it. The needles on the clock are easy to remove and you don't have to mark the origin of the needles.

I found a cork screw to be very handy in prying up the edge of the bezel. The tip was sharp enough to get a good hold of the edge and also gave good leverge when bending up the edge.

You don't have to pry around the whole gauge. I was able to remove the bezel by prying a small portion and then rotate the bezel and pull outwards to remove the item.

Use two "L" shaped like tools to pry the needles off. I used two computer case brackets that cover the card slots. They are perfect for prying off the needles.


Problems are I ran into:

When prying off the needles watch where they go - they all went flying across the room except for one. In this case, it was so tight that I pulled the whole pin out of the unit. I thought I had runied the unit, but I used a pair of pliers and carefully inserted the pin back into the cavity and to my surprise it still works. So the units a fairly robust and not as delicate and easy to damage as I thought.

The gauges are 16 years old and the plastic on the large gauge was a little brittle. Perhaps I should have pryed a little more before turning and pulling outwards. As you can see in the picture - this was the worst moment of the project. But nothing a little super glue can't fix.

Also with the large gauge I noticed that my OBC light no longer works. All the movement must have affect the capacitor solder. I will have to do the capacitor OBC fix for this - but lets hope to magically fixes itself before then.

In the end - all done - all problems fixed. The brittle plastic was solved with super glue and it turned out well. Not a project I enjoyed. Let's hope the information is useful for others.

Happy holidays guys - merry xmas and happy new year.

Regards

Ken