gauge bezel fit

I replaced the cracked gauge bezel on my '69 with a new one from a local vendor. The top left corner sticks out farther than it should, the original fit perfect. Anyone else run into this? It's one of those things that others might not notice, but is bugging the heck out of me.

Matt

There could be a number of answers to your problem. Is the new bezel a NOS or reproduction? A repro could be made to somewhat different standards of quality and dimensions. Another potential is that your original bezel, since it was installed by the factory many years ago, was firmly attached to the dash which has slowly changed shape, expanded and shrunk with the dash over time and became "form-fitted". A new bezel, even properly made, simply may not fit as snugly as the original due to such expansion and contractions of time.

Whether you live with it is your choice. You may have to try several new bezels to see if you can find one that fits to your satisfaction.

It may help to make sure the vinyl parts are extremely warm when you reinstall the bezel.

If it is a good repro it is made with the same tooling GM used. The paint may be lousy and the chrome suspect but the shape should be identical to the original.

Make sure to loosen all the soft dash pieces surrounding the bezel. Make sure all the screws are actually through their correct location. Sometimes you may think it is in correctly when it may be in next to the clip it should be in. It may even feel like it tightned up but it really just caught the outside edge of the clip instead of going through the middle.

The other strong possibility is that the forward console is a little too far forward on one or both sides which is easy to do. The result is that the bezel is at too steep an angle to fit properly. Loosen up the console and the dash pieces and carefully adjust everything. It should fit well if not perfect. Takes a lot of trial and error to get all those pieces to line up the way they should. It is a real PITA.

Sorry so long. Hope this helps. I am going through reinstalling the complete interior in my 70 and I feel for you!



Bill

My 73 has the original bezel, and the same problem. (Mine is minor and hasn't irritated me enough to fix it yet.) I think it is a fit problem. Like mentioned in the previous post, try adjusting console ect..

Thanks Guys!

Matt