Coming Up To Speed with The Smiths

While staring at the Morris dash recently and considering lighting improvements, I again noticed how dingy the speedometer looked.

On impulse, I went and grabbed the glass cleaner and some microfiber cloths to rectify the situation.  It didn’t work. It was the inside of the glass that was fogged with something. The speedo would have to be removed. 

After carefully removing it and a little delicate disassembly, I was able to gently clean the inside of the glass and most of the indicator face.  The glass turned out to be fogged with years of oily residue, probably from the engine and the many holes in the firewall I had been plugging up as I found them.  I Q-tipped the chrome trim to good effect and dusted off the face carefully. Bright LED bulbs for illumination, High Beam and Oil were then swapped in.

I initially subbed in an LED for the IGN warning lamp as well, but quickly backpedaled as it became obvious that the small current the incandescent lamp pulled was actually critical for starting up the magnetic field in the new alternator. Without it, the alternator would not immediately start charging the battery at engine start, and would not charge at all until the RPMs were high enough to kick-start the field coil, somewhat randomly. So, back to the old bulb it went. Despite having a dash of green overspray fog on the lower part of the instrument, it looks a lot better now after a good cleaning. Bit-by-bit…..