Getting ready for a 30th birthday on my BJ74 LX Auto Turbo 24v. Decided to clean the dash gauges. At night they were getting hard to read. Still have the original lights and they are pretty dim.
Anyway. After dismantling the unit I was surprised to find the numbers and lines have a metal base, presumably to reflect the light at night. These had rusted over time and no amount of gentle persuasion was going to make any difference.
Call me crazy but I managed to find something most of us find hard to find. Patience. Using an art paintbrush I applied lemon juice to all the rusted areas. Let it sit for 10 minutes and rubbed at the rust with a soft cloth. Dirt came away and the rust was shifting but the cloth wasn’t abrasive enough. That’s when I tried aluminium foil.
Yeah. Like I said. Crazy.
I’d used foil soaked in water before to clean rust from chrome. It worked a treat on the gauges. It takes a while. You need to keep applying the lemon juice, let it sit and take it slowly.
It’s a real improvement but in the photos you can see I was a bit over enthusiastic in a couple of places.
Didn’t actually take a before photo (doh!) but found a recent one that I took last time I was buying road miles to note my distance travelled. It clearly shows the rust.
This works but go slow. Just like the golden rule of bbqing. You can always add more brown to your meat but you can’t take it away.
Anyway. After dismantling the unit I was surprised to find the numbers and lines have a metal base, presumably to reflect the light at night. These had rusted over time and no amount of gentle persuasion was going to make any difference.
Call me crazy but I managed to find something most of us find hard to find. Patience. Using an art paintbrush I applied lemon juice to all the rusted areas. Let it sit for 10 minutes and rubbed at the rust with a soft cloth. Dirt came away and the rust was shifting but the cloth wasn’t abrasive enough. That’s when I tried aluminium foil.
Yeah. Like I said. Crazy.
I’d used foil soaked in water before to clean rust from chrome. It worked a treat on the gauges. It takes a while. You need to keep applying the lemon juice, let it sit and take it slowly.
It’s a real improvement but in the photos you can see I was a bit over enthusiastic in a couple of places.
Didn’t actually take a before photo (doh!) but found a recent one that I took last time I was buying road miles to note my distance travelled. It clearly shows the rust.
This works but go slow. Just like the golden rule of bbqing. You can always add more brown to your meat but you can’t take it away.
