Stewart Warner Gauge Clean Up

Ive got a set of SW gauges that someone painted black when they painted the dash. It looks like they wiped some of the paint off with thinner. Any ideas on what to use to shine up the lenses, kinda buff them out a little bit to clean up the scratches. Thanks.

 

I've used car wax with good results to make gl*** look better.

 

Don't laugh...... try some toothpaste and a damp cloth. The kind in a tube works pretty good. Can you tell if the faces are real gl*** or plastic?

 

I'd probably clean all of the paint off of them with lacquer thinner, then polish them.

 

You can polish them up, but they'll still work like **** unless they're the old made in the USA vintage. Their new stuff is total junk.

 

I used laquer thinner to remove the left over paint and it softned the lense, so I would say there plastic. The numbers on the amp gauge are 69en-m10,the numbers on the temperature gauge are 346 jb 72 k12. From what I read Im guessing that the m-10,and k12 means the were made Oct.1945 and Dec.1943 ? The amp gauge has slots for lighting from the top and the temp gauge lights from behind. Any way I didnt mean to ramble so much, Ill try the toothpaste and see what happens thanks.

 

3M makes a paint swirl remover for body shops that I used for a similar problem

 

I had real good luck using BR***-O (br*** cleaner-polish)It makes old scratched plastic lens shine up nicely, Also works good on scratched up watch lens/

 

I've never come across an original Stewart Warner gauge with a plastic lense. And I've seena PLENTY SW's

 

If they're gl***, some 0000 steel wool with some soap as a lubricant will shine 'em up nice.

If they're plastic though, the steel wool will cloud them up nice.

 

Plastic lenses? Are you sure they are Stewart Warners? Anyways, Mothers (now 3M) aluminum wheel polish works great on plastic.

 

I've never seen any SW's with plastic lenses either.

For plastic lenses, use the finest polishing compound that you can find and a soft polishing wheel.

 

Only thing I want to know is....what kind of ***hole paints their instruments when painting their dash? Other than the lazy kind of ***hole.

Most likely lenses are gl*** as I have not seen any SW with plastic, so there are lots of good remedies for cleaning.

 

Old SW gauges had light bulbs in the middle of the two gauges in the gauge housing that would light up two gauges from the top that is why there are slots there so the light could hit the face of the gauge. Later ones went to individual internal lighting with a bulb that is pushed into the provided hole in the back of the gauge.