Re: Hard to find parts

[Virgil & Sue Klein]

I looked up removing the instrument cluster in my ’54 shop manual.  It looks pretty straightforward to get the cluster out.  The trickiest part would be moving the left side heater controls out of the way.  Essentially these are the steps: Disconnect the ground side of the battery (VERY IMPORTANT STEP!!!), take the knobs of the heater controls, remove the phillips head screws at the top of the instrument cluster, remove the phillips head screws (from underneath) that hold the bottom and top of the instrument housing together. lift off the top, move the left side heater controls out of the way (there are three screws you need to remove), remove the screws (2) holding the instrument cluster to the lower control panel, remove four cap screws (two at the bottom and two at the rear of the instrument panel assembly) which hold the lower control panel to the insturment panel.  You don’t need to remove the lower control panel completely.  Disconnect the speedometer cable and pull the instrument cluster forward, disconnect the wire which runs through the loop on the back of the ampmeter at the 30 amp circuit breaker. remove the wires from the oli, fuel, and temp gauges and then remove the cluster.  You can now remove the gauges from the back of the cluster to access the insturment hands on the gauges.  Sounds like a lot of work but I think it should not be a big problem.