SAAB MONTE CARLO INSTRUMENT RECONDITIONING, PLUS

 This is the flip side of a Saab Monte Carlo instrument module, in all its beat up glory. Rust, corrosion, hard handling, and 50 years time have taken their toll.   AK!

 Here is the front of the plastic instrument mounting panel. It was pretty boogered up. You can't see all the cracks and gouges in the panel, in this photo, but they were there.

 The panel had six mounting bolts cast into it--this is the back side--and five of them were ripped out. The panel was also warped and was cracked in about a dozen places. 

 J B Kwikweld to the rescue! A local hardware store was the source for the 4mm x .7mm bolts, as well as the brass pipe I used to provide the centering sleeves for each of the bolts. There were a number of places where I used the JB to straighten the panel by routing out a long groove, laying in the JB, then holding the panel flat as that brand of killer epoxy cured for 24 hours. 

 The front of the panel had eight or ten places where there were a lot of little side by side cracks.  I ground out each tiny crack with a Dremmel tool, then filled it in with auto body filler and sanded it smooth. This sand-fill-sand-fill-sand process went on for a couple of days.... Then it was time to prime-sand-prime for a while, and finally give it three coats of color.  Pretty good, huh?

 Each of the instruments were reconditioned. Here is the full set, ready to install in the car.

And here are the four major instruments sitting in the repaired and repainted mounting panel. All the warning lights--not shown in this photo--were also reconditioned--they were just as grubby as the rest of the module [see photo one--above].  The owner could have just whacked out a panel out of aluminum and screwed it to the instrument panel of his Saab 96, but chose to have me do the job right...and you can see the results. Reminds me of a sign I saw one time on the shop of an old time welder/blacksmith:  "I can mend anything but a broken heart."