Hey guys. I got around to swapping out the clock lens on 70 Eliminator today and thought I’d post my adventure. I ordered the replacement lens from WCCC. They aren’t cheap but I had replaced all the ones in the instrument cluster so it was time to do the clock as well. The clock lens was VERY cloudy and a previous attempt on polishing/buffing the gauge lens just didn’t work.
It’s not an easy job, but not a hard job either. It’s always a pain to remove the dash.
Luckily I had an old 69 XR7 dash complete with a clock to practice on.
It still even has the original dash speaker. LOL
both clocks carried the same part number
My clock from the Eliminator works but is VERY cloudy
Instructions on WCCC say “To remove your clock knob you will need a quality pair of needle nose vise grips gripping the shaft while a second pair of pliers removes the knob by turning it counter clock wise.” They aren’t joking. I tried to just hold it with a thin, long nosed set of needle nose and it wasn’t happening. I even got the son-in-law to try to turn the knob while I tried to hold it and still didn’t. What worked for me was to go ahead and separate the outer plastic housing from the inner one giving me just enough room between the two to get a thin pair of vise grips in there. With that in place, I wrap the knob with masking tape and I was easily able to turn the knob counter clockwise and get it off. The knob is metal but has fine serrations on it so don’t mar it up and touch up the paint if needed.
I noticed after turning the clock housing a bunch of times while doing all of this, that there was chunks of something white on the clock face. Was it dirt? Was paint flaking off the clock face?
I done everything on the spare 69 XR7 clock first before attempting mine and I took that clock all the way out of the housing. I figured I’d do the same with mine from the Eliminator and oil the clock mechanism. Well removing it from the housing answered my question. Those chunks of stuff were white paint flakes coming from behind the clock!
I used the air compressor with about 20 lbs of pressure and blew all the loose stuff out. I checked the 69 housing and noticed it was cracking too but hadn’t let loose yet.
After a good cleaning, I laid both clocks out and I noticed something. The mechanics had been updated on my clock. No wonder it still worked.
Well after a thorough cleaning of the dash and a lot of effort I got it all back together and the dash back in.
