How to polish your Tach cover in under an hour

[LeaderDuece]

OK, I finally got around to doing this one yesterday. I timed myself, and it was right at an hour including dissassembly and assembly.

1) Remove 4 allen head bolts on both sides of the tachometer to rotate it forward.
2) Remove 2 phillips head screws in headlight ring so you can get inside the bucket.

Note: Before you do this, put a thick towel on your front fender, because you KNOW that thing is going to slip and drop down and ding your fender.

3) Remove 2 bolts from inside the bucket which are at the top holding the tach in place. I believe they are 8mm bolts
4) The tach is now free except for wiring. There is a blue quick release, a red quick release, and 2 sets of wires which go into the bucket from the top. Release all of these so that the tach is completely free.
5) Flip the tach over, and there are 5 small allen head bolts to remove. This will remove the bottom from the top -and the bottom is now ready to be stripped.
6) There are 3 phillips head bolts to remove which will allow all the electronics to be removed. 2 in front, directly under the LED screen, and a 3rd centered in the back.
7) There are 3 bullet push-in connectors which go to the 2 pushbuttons (the ones that say select and set on the front. Well, I'm not sure what they say, my writing is gone -more on that in a minute...). Pull these free. Note that the red goes to red, and black to black, but the other one isn't a color match, it's something like blue to purple (off the top of my head).

Note: When I plugged everything back in, the trip meter had reset, and the clock was reset. This confirmed my suspicion that the odometer data is stored with the LED chip.

8) I used blue painters tape and covered the black face, and silver trim ring around the LED display area. I totally covered this area, because I knew I would be spraying aircraft stripper onto the whole thing.
(9) Spray both items with aircraft stripper and let sit for a few minutes. Wipe it off with a paper towel. You may have to do this a couple of times. I then wash everything off with water to ensure it's free of stripper.
10) I swear, all I use is White Diamond and a hard cotton buffing drum. I timed myself, and it took 24 minutes to polish everything up to a nice gleam. All I can say is this -it's way easier with a drill press than it is with a grinder type set-up. If you don't have a drill press, it's worth it to get one from Harbor Freight for 50 bucks when they're on sale. They come in handy a lot more than you think. I did polish the face of the cover, but I didn't try to do that little bit on the inside of the face. You can't really see it anyway, and I was afraid my tape would wear off and then I might accidentally rub some black off.

Speaking of this however, the painter's tape did take off the words select and set from the black face piece. I'm kind of bummed about that...

11) Put everything back together.There isn't really anything to look out for, it's pretty straightforward and put it back in the order you took it apart.

Drink beverage of choice and enjoy

I took a picture of my setup so you could see what I mean by a hard cotton drum. I have a small one chucked (which I used for this project) and there is a large one sitting on the drill table which I've used for other projects.

[arizonawarrior]

LOL what you mean to say is the odometer and mileage is stored in the Tachometer head.

+1 I think the 'aircraft stripper' is the key and I think most guys try to polish the
clearcoat off instead of strip it first. Dunno.

.

[LeaderDuece]

Yeah, I agree with you on both accounts. As soon as I see "I started with 600 grit paper and now I can't get it to shine" I cringe. It's already as smooth as it will get, you just have to polish it. It will literally take 3 minutes to start getting a chrome like finish. It just takes awhile to go over the whole piece. And yeah, I meant the data is stored in the tach head. On my Mustang, if you switch out the dash -the part with all the dials and warning lights and so on, the Mustang won't run. You have to pull the odometer module and put it in your new dash so that it will run -it has a theft module in it (as well I suspect this stops you from putting a lower miles module in and claiming the car has lower miles than it does). I doubt the Warrior has a theft module -or a paired odometer setup, but I did wonder if the data was kept in the ECU, or the Tach. Just another reason you NEED the tach.

[jpwarrior]

Relocated this topic to the How To section.

Personal experience, I did this 10 years ago on mine and it looked OK, the problem I had was that the metal isn't pure aluminum, there's some magnesium in there as well and it doesn't have the same luster as the aluminum. The black piece will come off with some patience it's only on there with double sided adhesive tape.

[TECK]

Deuce, it does not matters how you did it... but it sure looks superb. Great job.

[gun-runner]

Thinking of you today Leader I went to Advanced and bought some of your beloved White Diamond to try it out. I cant give a review on polishing a part from the start sense I polished everything about 2 years ago, but I can say for a touch up I really like this stuff. Seems to me to work allot better than mothers. My only word of caution to anyone using a power ball or something on a drill is this stuff is messy, stays nice and wet and likes to fling EVERYWHERE. Ill cant wait to see how it does on the sealant side.

[LeaderDuece]

Originally Posted by jpwarrior

Relocated this topic to the How To section.

Personal experience, I did this 10 years ago on mine and it looked OK, the problem I had was that the metal isn't pure aluminum, there's some magnesium in there as well and it doesn't have the same luster as the aluminum. The black piece will come off with some patience it's only on there with double sided adhesive tape.

Wish I had known that I think some people's tach covers might be more blemished than mine -there is another thread running where a member was frustrated with discoloration. I didn't have that problem. I do think it looks 100 percent better than dull gray.

[gchalifo]

Well done!......you made polishing look easy! when in some cases is a real PIA!!!!

[terryk]

Nicely done.

[kzowarrior]

I like! Why is it easier to use a drill press? My buffing experience is limited to high school metal shop and we used a grinder style. Grinder style seems like you can manipulate parts more effectively