1933-34 Gauge Color

F

Flat Tire

Junior Member
The background color of the gauge faces on my car is a golden color. Reproduction gauge faces are brushed aluminum with no golden tint. What color were they when they left the factory? Have the gauge faces yellowed over time or were they finished with a golden tint?

If the original color was golden, is there a way to tint the reproduction gauge faces to achieve the factory color? If the gauge faces were originally silver, is there a way to remove the yellowing without removing the decal? I have a metric speedometer that I would like to retain since the car was assembled in Barcelona. Otherwise, I'd replace the gauge faces with a reproductions.

Lotsa questions. Any answers to any of these or any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
 
Flat Tire, I have an original KPH 1934 Speedometer. It has a gold tint to it. I believe 33 was more silver tinted than 34. Of course someone may have better handle on this than I.
 

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With the passage of time and varying exposure to air all over the map quality and humidity wise, it is difficult to draw any consistent conclusions, even with NOS gauges. The range is as above, namely from silver with a slight tint of gold to more heavily tinted with gold. The latter seems to be most often encountered on gauges that have had more out-of-the box exposure such as high-mileage speedometers. A lot of evident sun exposure tends to weaken the black markings and in some cases lightens the background coloration. In other instances, obvious advanced deterioration tends to introduce black (like silver tarnish) into the equation such as on that original Oil Chex gauge discussed on this site.

I've tried various cleaners on gauge faces without consistently good results.

I'm not sure that there was a difference between the '33-'34 face coloration as I've had NOS 20-20 amp gauges with terminal studs and 30-30 amp gauges with a wire loop without any discernible difference in their coloration.

If you can end up with the three original gauge faces reasonably close in appearance, count yourself as lucky.
 
That's the conclusion I've come to as well.

I'll have to replace the radio gauge face with a reproduction. I wish I could figure out how to tint the reproduction gauge face to match the other gauges that match each other fairly well.
 
JMHO on this but the Stewart Warner speedos seem the most silver . The delco speedos seem the most gold - brown and the Waltham speedos kinda between them . Pic is from my 33 5w showing a Stewart Warner that isn't dis-colored much . Second pic is a spare Stewart Warner and is even less dis-colored .
 

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The NOS gauges I have had are what I call a Champagne color background. I have found that many gauges are nicotine stained.That tends to turn them even more gold.Impossible to get cleaned off.
 
DavidG said:
Sheldon,

Good point about nicotine staining!
Click to expand...

David,Last few months I have been doing 35-36 gauges for a friend and some I bought off EBAY were so badly stained that I returned them to the seller.Very deceiving when looking at a picture.Here is an example of nicotine stained face compared to what it should be.Heavy smokers (Lucky Strike & Camel) back in the day.
 

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Sheldon,

Matching the grays of the '35 and early '36 gauge faces can drive one to drink. I had better luck with the late '36 brown and luckily avoided the extremes shown in your photo.
 
Interesting on this set of gauges and speedo (Kilo's, not MPH) is the speedo is the gold ISH color and the gauges and clock look silver
 

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Deuce lover
In theory you are right, in practicality the speedo is the only original Ford gage, the Amp, Fuel (or in this case WASSEN) and the clock are original German installed gauges (most likely original at the time of build)
 
And what's interesting is this speedo is 130 Kph and the one above is 15o Kph. as most all American speedo were 90 MPH right??
 
Sorry for the size and quality as these are difficult cars to locate but here is another German 34 with a Kilo speedo that appears almost white, one an only think the truer color is more silver!! I wish I knew how to make these picture appear bigger??? Best I have right now
 

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To take this further off track and hopefully Keith will chime in and correct me, but I seem to recall the '33 European '32 (The Model 14) had round gauges in an oblong panel insert and their faces were white with black lettering (I have one of the ammeters around here somewhere).
 

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The second German Kilo speedo seem to be of the 150 kph variety, sorry I cant post a bigger, better detailed photo.
 
Sorry I didn't look closely enough to see that it was a European variety(Custom German Coachwork?).All the French 33-34's I have seen used the USA style gauges and speedo was in KPH.Would be nice if you can post other pics of this car.Very interesting.
 
On my 34 the gauges are a pale gold colour (sorry for English spelling) . Some one has printed a decal replica of the kilo speedo face and pasted it over the original dial. Its so good you can't tell by looking at it and very accurate. The only thing the gives it away is the odometer and trip meter are in miles
 
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