[Jacques Reed]

Good Day,

Does anyone know a close match for the gold paint used on WW2 Ford instrument clusters? I looked at the late Bob Moseley's Instrument Panel Restoration thread but could not find any colour reference. Looked at a few off the shelf hardware store colours but usually too bright a gold colour.

Searching the web I found a reference to the color on the G503 website referring to a the colour of a 1941 Ford Jeep instrument cluster as a "code that Baxter Ford has" That Jeep cluster is similar in many ways to a Ford CMP cluster minus the shift points on the odometer. The gold colour of the plate would surely be the same.

From the G503 post is sounded like Baxter Ford is a Canadian Ford dealership. A standard modern Ford vehicle colour then perhaps is close such as Aurora Gold? I guess I could drive the local Super Cheap Auto parts employee crazy by asking to look at all the gold vehicle colours inside the locked paint cabinets but would prefer not to, I might want to shop there again!

The attached shows the cluster panel as found, the second one is after filling in the 4 screw holes with brass strip soldered behind each hole then filling with JB Weld and followd by filing, priming, spray putty, and sanding.

The last photo is why I am replacing the panel. Some previous bright spark cut out the panel at the ammeter to give the needle more room to move due to the gauge being warped. Grrr! Why go to all that trouble when simpler solutions exist.

As Bob stated "Nothing is impossible"

Cheers,