I have been following the FTE trend to change the OEM instrument faces from black background with white numbers to a white face background with black numbers. To me this is a great looking modification. First I ordered a set of vinyl stickers designed to be an easy way to get the look without being an artist. I got the kit and put it on my gauges, pretty easy but did not like the look.

I then decided to tackle painting them and try a steady hand at painting the numbers by hand. Sprayed the background a glossy white epoxy paint, then went after the raised numbers with a paint pen (Sharpie brand from hobby shop). I got the very fine point pen which was a mistake-get the fine or medium point-easier to paint without as much tendency to get off raised numbers. So after 3 times with the very fine tip paint pen( re-painted background each time) the details of the gauge face was being lost from the layers of paint.

Time to get serious with getting the multi-layers of paint off the gauges with some "aircraft" grade paint stripper. This was the real mistake-DO NOT USE AIRCRAFT GRADE PAINT STRIPPER ON PLASTIC-what a messy of gooey plastic do I have left-

Anyone have tach & speedo with trip odometer gauge face for sale? Please PM if you do

 

Damn Man if it wernt for bad luck you may not have any at all.

 

The cheap option almost never turns out to be the cheapest option, heh.

 

Lol, I did a similar process on my 86'. I advise not using and kind of paint remover! Lol, the plastic checkered pattern just desolves...

 

Let me look when I get home, I might still have a few pieces left in the spare cluster.

 

I've heard of using brake fluid to remove paint from plastic parts. Don't know how well it would work on the speedometer, though. Sorry to hear about your @$#$%#* moment.

 

I've used brake fluid as a paint remover on these gauges, it works OK (albeit slowly, give it at least 24 hours) but the plastic ends up cracking about 50% of the time.

Do a Google search on plastic-safe paint removers, allegedly there are plastic-safe chemicals one can use for this.

 

I do have another cluster, pm me your info and I'll get you the shipped price together.

 

This.

I made the mistake of dropping a blue oval in a small container of brake fluid I was using to get paint off of a toy car, and unfortunately I didn't realize until it was too late. When I pulled it out, the plastic had tiny cracks running throughout it.

As far as this being a trend, I honestly think it died down a few months after Sycostang first did his write-up. I once painted my gauge cluster, but I realized I didn't like it as much as I thought, so I went back to the original gauges.

 

I personally don't like the white one's... I did mine blue and it matches the truck very nice!

White gauge's give off a "Euro" feel to me.

 

Thanks for the input guys, found an instrument cluster in jy and will attempt the white face conversion again!

 

Don't feel bad, I tried to do mine but with red background and white letters/numbers. Initially it looked great until I tried the whiteaint, then a wierd marker thing neither looked good so I repainted the red and it left a few runs, nothing major though. I then went for black numbers/symbols with a sharpie but kept messing up the Normal on the oil and temp guages. I then tried to start over and ended up melting a piece with aircraft stripper. I eventually threw in the towel and got another cluster from the junkyard.

 

And soon there will be no junk yard ones left