has anyone opend up a vdo gauge?

I would like to paint the indicators bright red like all of the new gages.

what do you think?

easy job, or breaking a watertight seal or what.....


Ramb

I believe they are sealed, just looked at the ones I pulled out of my boat and I don't think they can be opened.

I just redid mine with monster gauges and carbon fiber panels.

can you post or send me pics of your panel
i want to do the same thing , only the dutch (cheap) way.

I have a friend who works at spectrim cubic ( hydrograhics)
and have access to cnc mills and scrap aluminum billet for $0.10 a pound.

I want to print carbon fiber, duplicate the safety graphics and text, and clear coat, then make some polished aluminum bezels that fit over my vdo's , and if possible, paint the indicators red......

should look good, not too loud, but a definite upgrade.

Ramb
robert.hamelink"at"jci.com

Sounds like a whole lot of work for what could be replaced with more of what you want for around $40 each for the smaller gauges and around $150 for tachs.

I think you'll have problems with fogging lenses.

yea
if they are sealed. I'll keep them that way
they all work and look good right now
I was just lookign at Autometer gauges to try and generate the profile for the bezels and noticed that all/most high perf gauges have bright red indicators.......

Ramb

Just pony up for new gauges.....

here you go

That looks great.

Who made the carbon dash panels? How did they get the lettering on them for switches on the lower sections?

Once you remove the gauge from the panel, if you have strong fingertips, you can wiggle the lens out of the housing. The lens has a rubber seal around the perimeter and a flat rubber seal on the backside. No problem gaining access to the pointer. Whether the pointer (frosted clear plastic) will look right painted or is paintable, I don't know.

I ended up in a dash panel dilemma with the same year model boat as yours. I needed to add instruments to monitor a blower motor repower, as well as a mechanical trim indicator, but I didn't want to change anything that tried to make a nice old boat look like anything other than a nice old boat. I ended up making panels from scratch, matching the color, getting a silkscreen outfit to print the pinstripe, and finding a way to duplicate the textured clear outer finish. All in all it was a huge PITA. But, if you were to fit newer gauges w/ bezels it might look like this...