Not an auspicious start

So, a couple of weeks back I bought an A-body Rallye cluster on eBay. It had the 150 speedo and a factory tach, the latter of which is far harder to find than one might believe. I think the seller forgot about me, because it didn't ship for several days until I asked about it. No harm, no foul there but a bit irritating considering the money spent.

The thing was in gorgeous condition, but one can always count on the US Postal Service to change that. Change it they did. In their defense, the outer box wasn't all that sturdy but there was a lot of foam and bubble wrap. It was also marked "FRAGILE" in several places by the sending post office. I had the carrier mark it as "Visible damage" to the box, but he left before I discovered the extent of what they'd wrought.

Let's start with the speedometer. The needle appears bent, but it's possible it's supposed to be that way. The front of the cluster was covered with fairly stiff cardboard that didn't appear damaged. I don't have a comparator so I'll ignore that for the moment. However, it's pretty clear the back of the speedo took a hit, because when I rotate the cable inlet, this happened:



Yup, it stayed there. There's physical contact between the flying magnets and the drum that can be felt when turning the inlet.

Then we have the actual frame, which is now bent. It's hard to get a decent photograph of the damage, but I assure you it's worse than it looks. This structure is made of zinc, which bends slightly better than a wet saltine, so it may well not survive an attempt to straighten it.




Then we have the rarest, most-valuable part of the whole assembly, the tachometer. That stud just flops around so it's definitely broken. These things are hen's teeth. I may have mentioned it previously, but I've only seen three of these on eBay in more than three years of looking. I bought two of 'em, including this one, and Kev's girlfriend bought the other for her M3 Duster 340. The fiber insulating washer is broken, but luckily the zinc here is not damaged.




They even managed to break a couple of the bulb sockets. They're thorough if nothing else.




At least the AC controls made it through with flying colors. Too bad I don't have any A-bodies with air conditioning.

I've already contacted the seller about this, and he's going to work on getting it resolved tomorrow since it arrived on a Saturday. He said it was insured through the post office but not for the full amount, as well as through eBay, also not for the full amount. I don't know the total of both combined; he didn't say. For the moment all I can do is play the waiting game.

This isn't a great omen for the start of an expensive restoration.

oh shit AC controls?!@!??!?!!?...push button control "barracuda" clusters are rare as hens teeth in themselves....in fact ive never had one in my paws save for 1..and it had been CUT for standard controls.....call it ralley all you like but that was the stock dash for ALL fish...

ok so on the speedo needle "some" of them are factory bent due to the concave of the lenses , and looking at yours it is the bent type(theres atleast 2 or 3 needle variations)

on the framework belive it or not ive unbent worse, the fact they bent easy, aids in the fact that well they arnt generaly that brittle

get me a better shot of that tach as i dont recall either of mine looking like that..late version?

belive it or not the very first factory tach i ever saw was in a slant six 4spd strip down 67 barracuda fastabck

ive got dozens of frames, guages bezzles etc, id litteraly gut broken dahses and save good lenses and such, got really good ad re-melting tabs and such

as i recall on that tach once you pull it apart it should be fixable, but its been decades since i had one in my hands..mind you i still have 2 in a box....if memory serves the studs are just attatched to a "blank" pcb board with loose wires running from the studs to the actual unit

69.5CUDA said:

oh shit AC controls?!@!??!?!!?...push button control "barracuda" clusters are rare as hens teeth in themselves....in fact ive never had one in my paws save for 1..and it had been CUT for standard controls...

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If you need 'em, let me know. I can't use them so I'm just going to sell them anyhow.

69.5CUDA said:

ok so on the speedo needle "some" of them are factory bent due to the concave of the lenses , and looking at yours it is the bent type(theres atleast 2 or 3 needle variations)

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OK. I wondered because it didn't look like the speedometer took a facial hit and I wouldn't have expected it to bend like that if it had, so that's encouraging.

69.5CUDA said:

on the framework belive it or not ive unbent worse, the fact they bent easy, aids in the fact that well they arnt generaly that brittle

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That's good news. I'm used to the B- and E-body parts, both of which will snap if you look at them too sternly.

69.5CUDA said:

get me a better shot of that tach as i dont recall either of mine looking like that..late version?

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The 1969-'71 tach looks different than the 1967-'68 part. The speedometer is different as well. The numbers are all horizonal on both, and the tach sweeps from 5 o'clock to 1 o'clock. This is what my tach would look like installed:




In '67-'68, the numbers wrap around, and the tach sweeps from 8 o'clock to 4 o'clock. This is probably what you're used to seeing:




There's also an aftermarket, which they call a "reproduction", but other than fitting in the hole it's almost 100% wrong. All factory A-body tachometers read to 6K. I don't know who designed the face markings, but they failed miserably:

69.5CUDA said:

ive got dozens of frames, guages bezzles etc, id litteraly gut broken dahses and save good lenses and such, got really good ad re-melting tabs and such

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If you've got a '70 Dart bezel in good shape, I'd be interested. It's different from the Barracuda units, though. It literally has to be out of a '70 Dart or Duster which used a thumbwheel radio ('71 used knobs). I'd rather not buy reproduction, mostly because I doubt the quality but also because they're almost as expensive as an NOS one.

69.5CUDA said:

as i recall on that tach once you pull it apart it should be fixable, but its been decades since i had one in my hands..mind you i still have 2 in a box....if memory serves the studs are just attatched to a "blank" pcb board with loose wires running from the studs to the actual unit

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I believe you're right about this, and being honest I'm not terribly worried. Anything that can be built can be rebuilt. However, I paid quite a bit of money for this cluster, which was beautiful when he shipped it. As-is, it's worth a fraction of what left my bank account.

Friend had a 70 Swinger in Sublime. 340 automatic. First time I drove it pulled out into traffic at work and stepped into a little to get in the flow. Instantly sideways. Last seen some kid had it and painted it black.

so be it barracuda or "ralley" there were DOZENS of versions
you had black argent and chrome, argent and woodgrain and black and wood grain
then you have round knob radio, dial/thumb knob radio and radio delete..i "think" theres another where the radio face openings are a weird size?
then you have the slide controls and the ac controls(btw the control units themselves are the same on trucks b and c bodys)
then you had with and without cig lighter
i think there was one with a clock knob hole in it too.......

to compound things more you had ones with and without the flasher switch hole in the top left...is this the 1 and only thing that designated a "ralley" (dart) cluster over a barracuda?...im not sure?

to further multple this any and all of those could be mixed n matched as options making litteraly dozens of bezzles

on the barracudas the thumb wheel, slider, black/chrome/argent are by far the most common PERIOD regardless of other options
barracudas ordered high option had the woodgrain insert which is just "stuck on" over the normal setup

refurbing them is actualy VERY simple, tho time consuming, modling foil can be used and or "model aircraft" wing chrome....ive done a few this way...the cluster "centers" re-finish gloriously with "bare metal foil"

"if" i have any good ones they are hard packs and stashed away...and would be..at best...driver quality, ALL of them have the 4way flasher, but if your woodgraining you can woodgrain right over the hole....


"if" you find yourself needing a new cluster frame let me know...i know where those are stashed

as for that repop..FFS the SW that i de bezzled and wrapped with tape, and painted the needle orange looks a hell of alot more stock ....honestly it looks soo stock if you dont know better you dont notice

and on the tach its 67 thru mid 69..early cars got the "leftovers" late ones got the new stuff for 70 which i think is also when the needle shape/style changed as well...it was the "mid point" numbers on yours that threw me IE 3500..i cant say ive had that face in my hands before

My plan, if I can find a decent used one, is to refinish it with Alclad 107 for the chrome and buy new woodgrain inserts. The bezel I need is 100% specific to the 1970 A-bodies. All the '69-older have the wrong openings, textures, or both. Mind you, this particular car's going full-boogie restoration, not just a nice driver. "Good enough" really isn't. NOS 1970 bezels are in the $1,000+ range because there's no suitable substitute. I'd really rather avoid spending that kind of money.

have you worked with the alclad before?

its great stuff but has SERIOUS drawbacks, first and formost its fragile as hell,(unless they changed it recently) but worse if you clear coat it, it ends up looking like simple silver, when used "inside" lexan IE rc car bodys are clear lexan and painted on the inside..you lay down some alclad top it with black and the chrome is AMAZING!!!!!...but replicating it any other way tends to end up with either a silver or a chrome that "wipes off" with anything ctouching it

not trying to be a downer, just ...ive used it..alot on alot of projects

and for those reasons...is why i found various foil and wrap options

what boggles me is that its a 70 only....the ONLY differance between it and a 68/9 unit is the 4way flasher and "sometimes" the cig lighter...yeah it was an optional hole....and btw both of which can be filed and filled its actualy VERY easy plastic to work with....ive done a few mods customs and resotrations of them the plastic itself seems to be abs and takes abs glue pretty well...if im remembering right...regardless ive littteraly re-stitched together totaly destroyed dashes, even made one with radio delete using the glove box trim plate as the fill plate sections....i should grab a pic of what i did on my 69 dash..youd probably like that ones mods

filling a flasher would be HELL if you were trying to retain the OE texture underneeth, but because your covering it with wood trim its moot point

heres a fish dash for referance...and aside from the 4way i dont see a differance

I haven't yet worked with the Alclad, however I've seen a couple of them done with it, along with several other parts (and a video test) that showed excellent results using Alclad Aqua-Gloss Clear. If there was dulling to the finish, it was hard to pick out. Better still, once it's fully cured the Aqua-Gloss can be topcoated with regular body-shop 2K clear, which is obviously designed for brutal outdoor conditions.

I could probably convert one, but I'd have to get it pretty reasonably to offset the cost, time, and general mucking about involved. In other words, if I have to pay $300 for one, it's not worth the effort. I'll just save a few extra bucks and buy a repro when they go on sale for ~$560.

they must have finally got the clear right, as that was ALWAYS the issue

with all the effort involved,never mind finding a "reasonable" core to build, then strip, paint swap out for clean lenses, removing the lens center for painting, all the time spent masking painting, price of the wood inserts....

i mean im good and im cheep, and ive redone a few... but even i would probably just say fuckit and buy the repop...just because i know what kind of time is involved ..and thats with me OWNING several worth doing

mind you my 69 custom unit ill still have to re-do someday as there is no "replacement" for what i did...radio deleted via glove box door panel, slipped in to lose the snaggle tooth hanging off the right side, gave it a nice "completed" wrap akin to both earlier and later cars

if nothing else youve told me i need to re-visit alclad again

This guy does a lot of testing with model paints. This is a video he made a couple of years back testing various clears over Alclad. It's a fairly long video, but he shows results at the end, including using Alclad Aqua-Gloss alone, and with generic 2K automotive clear over that. It isn't perfect chrome, but it's about as good as Alclad gets.

When he starts talking about his spray mask, skip forward to 9:20.