Slick 60's

Was restoring a cluster the other day and was trying to figure out how to replace the usually cracked, melted or just completely missing little plastic "bubbles" that were used in the cluster for the turn signals and high beams. The signals were green and the high beam was red. So what I did was find a piece of plastic, I used a blister pack from a set of Dewalt drill bits, and a 5/16ths nut and a round headed screw small enough to fit inside the nut with a little room to spare. Then I placed the nut in a vise, open side up of course, and placed the plastic over the nut and then take a heat gun on the low setting and heat the plastic enough so you can then take the round headed screw and with a pair of vice grips, press the screw down into the nut, thus forming a bubble. The trick is to make sure you use a big enough piece of plastic so as not to wrinkle it while heating and not heating it too fast. I found that a piece that's 2x3 or so is plenty big and you can get 2 or 3 bubbles out of this. Then just paint them the green or red. One piece of advice here, the red bubbles are smaller then the green ones so you can use a smaller screw head and nut, probably a 1/4 inch nut. I know this is probably an anal solution to an insignificant problem but they look perfect. After you've painted them just cut them to size and hold in place with some clear tape, just like they did from the factory.

Someone posted here long ago:
micro wave a seven up plastic bottle and it will shrink and thicken up for the turn signals. I ca not remember if I waved it or boiled it at the time, I had my high beam indicator at the time.

I have an alternate method that uses shrink tubing and electrical tape. I will post it here in the hints and tricks section.