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Removed all the lock/latch components in the doors and the B-pillars.

Then left door latch had a broken bobby pin spring.

I'll need to degrease, de-rust, and de-grit them. Then I'll paint them and lube them.

I ordered new Bobby Pins for both latches from John Ulrich. They other spring is pretty rusty, So figure why not replace it why everything is apart.




I'll probably pull the window regulators as well, I am sure they could use a good cleanup, and paint.

Continuing with the remaining strip down of the body shell, I was cleaning g up some of the door components and realized I had another broken spring. This time inside door handle. The missing spring is what holds the handle in the lock position.




I have a replacement on order from the Dallas Zone Office.

Then I moved onto gutting the dash board.




I also tested the temp guage in a pot of boiling water as I knew it was reading low. Well. Yeah, at 211 degrees it was reading about 160 on the gauge. So I'll try to fiddle with the calibration as it almost like regardless of temp over 160, the needle stops moving at 160.

On the temp gauge, make sure the needle itself isn't binding up somewhere. That was the issue with mine, though mine did not move at all initially. It was stuck in the extreme low position.

Once I freed it up, I did as you described and found that it was reading about 180 when the water in the pot was boiling. The calibration on mine was such that it stopped at about 180 and ran out of range. The "calibration" is a bending process of the mechanisim.

This is where I ended up and it's been doing well ever since. The center of the scale should be 180 degrees. I further tested and brought the water to a bowl and the needle went to full scale without completely pegging out.

Checking my gauge, the needle is free and I can rock the needle through it's entire range by manually moving the mechanism. I also did give all pivot points a little 3 in 1 oil.

The issue is that it's entire range is only about 1/4 of the scale.

That's going from freezing water to boiling and back. I figured that was the extreme range test. So based on this, I think it was rebuilt in the past, and perhaps the incorrect amount of fluid was used. So the tube is not expanding as much as it should.

So looks like I'll have to send it out to someone.

I recommend giving Chris Connors a call (Mechanical Speedometer Repair on the directory page). He walked me through my gauge so that I didn't have to send it to him. Great guy.

After I freed up the needle, my gauge was "pegging" at 180 degrees (center). It was a calibration that needed to be done and that is done by bending the mechanism on the back. What I found is that you can't really increase or decrease the range, but you can adjust the center point. What that means is that if the center point is too low, it will appear that the range has been reduced because is pegged low for too long. Similarly, if the center point is too high, you will peg the high side before 212 degrees. In that instance, you will also notice that the needle will not go all the way to zero when it cools.

Anyway, before you send it off, I'd give Chris a call.

EDIT - I looked at a wrong picture....I was right at half way at a rolling boil.

I went back through my photos and videos from when I was working on my temp gauge. At a rolling boil, my gauge original only went to about the 160 degree point (less than half way).

I can change the center point, which I tried, but the issue is that regardless of where I set it, the needle won't move anymore from 150f actually temp to boiling.

The needles range is only one notch on the gauge. So 100 to 150/160 on the guage face. That's with the needle not on the bottom hard stop. By 150f actual it's already at 160 on the gauge. As the actual temp goes up, the needle no longer moves. So from 160 actual to 212 actual, no needle movement at all.

The needle itself still has plenty of movement manually.

Sounds like you’ll need to send it to someone. I recommend Chris even though he didn’t actually work on mine. He was clearly very knowledgeable and spent a good bit of time to help me avoid sending mine to him.

Probably an issue with your sender rather than your gauge. You can test it by momentarily connecting it to 5V which should drive the needle all the way up. Not too long or you'll overheat the element.

I believe this is a mechanical gauge so no electricity involved.