Here's a little mod that might interest some people.

The bezels can be removed from the instruments and painted for a new look. I've seen a few other examples of this. I painted the bezels but others have reported polishing them. I didn't have any luck with that; it's almost like the material is too soft.

Bezel removal is a matter of de-crimping around the edge so it can be lifted away. This take some patience and small tools. On reassembly you have to re-crimp the edges which can be done well enough to hold everything together but never as neatly as the original process....which I suspect was an [at least partially] automated operation. Caution is required to avoid damaging the exposed, visible edges; this would less of an issue if your dash is the type where the gauges are recessed.

Glass lenses can be cleaned at this time. The plastic speedometer lens can be polished as well. Mine was so far gone that I had a local glass shop make a glass replacement.

These are Series III (later) Veglia gauges. Early Series IIIs used Smiths gauges. They can modified the same way.

These will be used in a non-Jaguar application where i thought a little brightening-up would look good.



Cheers
DD

 

yes I refreshed mine, the Smiths black frames. A total p.i.t.a. to raise those crimps but I finally did it. one by one. What is needed is a dentist's tool to lift the crimped tabs.

 

Hmm...
Must be a Series 3 thing.
My Series 2 gauges are also Smith, but have a very shiny "chrome" bezel that only needed a little cleaning to look Really Nice.
(';')

 

yes Elinor, they went from silver to black frames but don't know what year, maybe 1980 or 81. Satin black, not gloss not flat.

 

The late Series IIs had the all-black bezels, as seen on this '78




All the earlier Series IIs I've seen have the silver-trimmed bezels, like this


But my Series II knowledge is very limited so there may be other variants.

Cheers
DD