'66 Gauge Lettering Color

[Tom H.]

My original gauges have off-white lettering and look nice. The tach and speedometer have green lettering. The water gauge (250) has a yellow caution, orange warning section. I ordered a new water temperature gauge from Mid-America which looked identical to mine according to their online catalog photo. When it arrived, it had green lettering and a slightly different script style than my original, plus the new one has an orange caution, red warning section. Mid-America was very good about taking it back and paying both shipping costs.

I then ordered the gauge from Zip, which shows the white lettering in their photo and it arrived today. It looks identical to the one from Mid-America.

I can't find any references to this problem, or to a change in lettering colors during C2. Maybe my gauges have faded uniformly and it's all my problem? Or maybe the catalog places have changed to a new supplier? My fallback at this point is to carefully grind the rivets off the old and new one and swap faces, hoping glue will hold. I will only get one shot at that!

[Dick W.]

Re: '66 Gauge Lettering Color

The guages that you purchased are the current repo's

[Tom H.]

Re: '66 Gauge Lettering Color

Thanks. I have checked the rivet spacing and at least that appears identical. I'm going to try surgery this weekend. The face just hangs on the front, it doesn't support the gauge. I will use a small tab of JB Weld on the back. I'll update on results.

Just out of curiosity, are the reproduction ones correct for some vintage?

[Ken A.]

Re: '66 Gauge Lettering Color

Your gauges are either faded or incorrectly restored. The gauge you purchased from Zip was built to factory B/P colors. You are wasting your time trying to glue your old dial plate on a new gauge. Just purchase the other three and all will be correct.