Gauges cleanup
Ok so after dismantling things for a while, it’s time to reverse the trend and start rebuilding.
I went to buy one those 3M headlight polishing kit. It works quite well but its somewhat messy. My advice if you ask the girlfriend to help you is make sure she wears an apron! The results are surprisingly good for a do it yourself kit. It doens’t remove the microscopic cracks in plexy of course but it definitely restore gloss and transparency. I also used some armorall on the black plastic shell to make the whole unit look a lot newer.
before
After
Yan's GT380 
That’s super impressive! When I’m at the garage next I’ll have a look for yellowed gauges…
November 7, 2010 at 11:02 am
I have a question : I have the trasparent plastic pieces with many scratches and cracks that i cannot see the numbers. How can i open the two boxes ? I’ve taken away the 2 bolts on the back with green stuff all around but it doesn’t seems to move anyway.
Sorry for my bad english, but I’m italian.
Thank you, I’m hoping that you’ll answer.
😀
July 17, 2012 at 6:04 pm
Hi there.
The plastic lenses cannot be easily removed, they are glued on. That’s why I had to polish them.
I have seen other people who cut them out with a good blade and replace them with cut glass glued with silicone. If yours are really damaged you may have to do that.
This site shows how to do it yourself: http://smokeriders.com/Technical/Suzuki/GT_Lenses/gt_lenses.html
This site can do it for you: http://gaugerestore.webs.com/
Cheers,
July 19, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Wow! Thank you so much! I think these articles will be very helpful!
By the way i really appreciated your blog and, of course, your beautiful Gt380 (same colour and model as mine)!
I’ve removed one lenses, and it has not benn so simple also because some plastic pieces of the side flew away when i forced the lens out.
I’ve tried to find new speedometer and tachimeter but they seem to be out of stock.
I’ll try with this idea of new glass with glue. Thank you again! 🙂
July 19, 2012 at 3:29 pm