BK N 66

do any of the corvette parts companies do a cluster exchange?

i know i can send my original cluster and they will re do it for me,

but this seems to be very pricey if u want all new gauges and lens and
the cluster repainted. i know its a lot of work but u would think that
they would do a exchange and charge a nominal exchange fee plus
the cost of the new parts they install and a little for their labor???

$1500 seems like a lot for a rebuild of my original cluster?

what do u guys think? I know the labor is expensive but it seems a
little high for the average joe?

ILBMF

I never heard of that. These clusters have date stamps on the rear side which a lot of people want to keep intact.

Frankie the Fink

Clusters have dates and some are unique...even down to the VIN. 63 has three distinct one-year-only clusters...they don't grow on trees... Then we can talk about the unique gauges themselves...

Nobody said this was a cheap hobby... The people with the skills and tools to do these unique tasks aren't charging "nominal fees". There are about three sources I'd trust to restore a rare cluster and they ain't hurting for work and charge accordingly for their abilities and the benefits of decades of experience working on these pieces.

You can do a budget restoration depending on your skills and the condition of the cluster. The small gauges are almost always OK....the mechanical stuff (e.g. cable driven speedo/tach and mileage/odometer gear train) are usually what fails. Vendors can fix/restore the speedo/tach, you can rebuild the odometer drive train and then paint/repair the cluster housing as needed.
Prob save yourself $1,100 of the $1,500 cost you cite.

Not all that hard but tedious and requires patience...

phil2302

Look on ebay.
If an original date stamp is meaningless to you there are usually some very nice restored ones available for much less than the $1500 you mention. Just need to make sure you get the right tach and oil pressure guage for your engine.
You wind up with a nice new cluster and still have your original.

65 Pro Vette

The problem is the ones out there for less money are restored by krylon. You get what you pay for. To do a complete cluster, rebuilding and refinishing everything $1,500 is cheep money.

6850mike

I know Clock's By Rodger does and I am sure the other restores will.

67vetteal

It is not a hard job to restore the cluster yourself. Study a little, organize a lot, and photograph as you go. If your going concourse it becomes another story. Granted, guys like me have been enjoying these cars and have done it "all" over the years. Krylon is fine if applied properly and it's amazing what Pledge furniture polish can accomplish. Of course if the cluster is trashed to the point of needing new chrome it would require much thought. Al W.

mblake101

I sent a couple cluster units to Clocks by Roger in the early 90's. They came back great, but as others note; it's pricey. On my last couple of 63's, I decided to retore the housing themselves and send the 4 small gauges and tach & speedo in for repairs. I used Corvette Specialites of Maryland West Coast last year and Bill Harrison this year. They were both comparable in price at $675-$750 shipped out the door. They are both excellent folks and truly care about helping each and every customer with they're particular needs and performing high quality of their work. It's a coin toss. Just due to the pointer colors used, I kinda favor Corvette Specialities, but then again, Bill's color could be spot on??? I just don't know what a true original looks like.

Succinctly, if you are not interested in redoing all the switches, you can save $800 right there. As a side note, it may have been the time of year, but if time is an issue, Bill got mine out in about 5 weeks....Corvette Specialties were about 2 weeks longer. BTW, with all the helpful threads on housing restorations, the four different housings I've done myself were just as nice as those as I got back from Clocks by Roger...and 63-64 are more difficult due to the satin silver rings.

Good luck on whatever course you pursue.

phil2302

Not everyone is interested in an NCRS better than the factory restoration.
Looking real nice and functioning well is fine for alot of us.
Original Corvette cluster paint can be delivered by a unicorn but delivery is slow. In the meantime Krylon makes some good paint.
And no sometimes you do not "get what you pay for."
$1500 may be cheap to you but not everyone.
Ebay? Plenty of great stuff if you ask all the right questions before buying and deal with established sellers with good rep and easy return policies.
Just sayin....

GUSTO14

Frank, you might want to contact one of the companies that does this and speak to them about specifically what it is that they do that makes it expensive? I know I bought a "completely restored" cluster at Carlisle for a '63 for over a grand and it did look good. Since the seller couldn't tell me exactly who had done the restoration, I then dropped it off with my favorite restoration shop and had check it out for me. It cost another $500 + to make everything work perfectly. They actually set it up on a bench and verify everything is working as intended. They also gave me a detailed, itemized list of everything they did to it.

These folks are not too far from you and do a terrific job restoring instrument clusters. It's certainly worth a phone call to see what all can be involved.

Good luck... GUSTO

Railroadman

It would not hurt to contact a couple of the rebuilders and ask about UTEX. They might just have something on the shelf, you never know.

johngandersonjr

I restored my own cluster last spring. My gauges were really bad as they sat for 30 years. All sorts of forum members offered assistance, vetsvette2002, Frankie, Bluestripe67, etc....

I still might have some instruction laying around, if I can find them I will send them along.

took me about 2-3 weeks to do the work, and most of that was due to waiting for parts.

I also rebuilt and painted the steering column. Used SEM Trim Black paint.

jrs 427

If a person looking to buy a C-2 is bringing five lights and a magnifying glass to inspect a gage cluster stamp .................. or believes the sale hinges on this fact, would be truly amazing. A fifty plus year old factory assembled mode of transportation under this scrutiny of detail must be a million dollar value time machine. Sorry, my dedications not even close. A wider view of world activities occupies my life.

Frankie the Fink

Spend some time on the NCRS web site...you'd be surprised...and their not $1MM cars either

rayvaflav

I had the gauges on my '66 Coupe refaced and recalibrated and provided a NOS tach face to Corvette Instruments in Florida. I decided to restore the cluster housing myself. It's an item that you can do on your own, if you mess it up you can redo it, as long as the underlying chrome base is there you can experiment with it until you get it right. The cost of the outsourced repairs was around $500 and the cost of my restoration was about $11.00 in SEM paint and $3.00 in 3M pinstriping tape. I did not deduct the cost of the thrill of restoring my own cluster, to me that's worth about two grand.


Ray