Friday night I went out for a spin and the screws on my tach face, which had been slowly rattling loose over the last year or so, finally loosened enough to bind the needle above 2000RPM. The tach looked pretty scruffy anyway, a result of sitting in the sun over the last 30 years. So I went into action:
Before:
After:
I took the tach dial off, scanned it, cleaned it up in Photoshop (if you like I can post the hi-res template I made), and then printed it out on a transparency. I sanded the tach dial and spray-painted it flat white, so the clear numerals would show up white. Turns out, the tach is painted using a layer of green over a layer of white anyway. The plastic for the dial is translucent green. I mounted the transparency using super glue and put it all back together, repainting the needle while I was at it.
It looks almost stock! Definitely better than before. The fluorescent red used for the redline doesn't exist in printer ink, so that's not quite right, but hey -- what do you want for free?
EDIT: oh, the night light thing: I should post some after-dark pics, but it looks stock except a little brighter. Next time I'll use two coats of white =)
