has anyone tried to replace or repair the plastic that covers the deluxe cap? I have a decent cap but the plastic is cracked.
Yes - you can take apart a gas cap and the center grille emblem as well. Here is a step by step. Look at the inside of the cap. You will see 3 (some might have 4) mushroomed over pins that hold it all together. Use a Dremel tool and grind off these heads and the whole cap will come apart. Some caps I have worked on have a lens over the medallion that can be replaced. I just took one apart and it has a solid medallion that cannot be fixed if broken. The clear lens is actually part of the medallion itself. If you have a real nice cap with good chrome but a cracked medallion - you can replace the complete center medallion from a donor cap that has bad chrome. Also, the early center grille emblem uses the same size medallion and you could swap in one of those. See a couple posts later in this thread for some pictures I posted. To put it back together you will be using a self tapping screw instead of the mushroomed pin that you ground off. If I remember right It is like a #6 in size. Take your cap to the hardware store and they will give you the right screws to do the job. Clean up the pin spots that you ground down and drill a small pilot hole for the screw. Put it all together and run in the 3 (or 4) screws and you are done. Note - be careful with the center medallion. Over time the silver in the lines becomes flakey and will damage easy from touching or handling - so becareful with the disassembled parts to prevent damage.
Here is a picture. Very easy to ID what mushroom heads to grind off, as you can see the mounting tabs in the gap between the cap and the backing plate. One note - use a self tapping screw with the correct size pilot hole - as the cap is a zinc casting and the mounting pads could crack if you just try to force a sheet metal type screw into it.
Well I just took one apart and here are the pictures. Sadly, the one I took apart does not have a replaceable clear lens - it is all one piece with the medallion. I am going back to my original post and update what I found. Funny, as I have taken apart other caps and replaced the lens. Maybe some you can and some you can't? Anyway - if you have a decent cap as far as the chrome goes you can still take it apart and replace the center from a donor cap that has bad chrome. My repair instructions for opening them up re-assembly will still apply.
When you did yours, was the medallion one piece or did you have a clear lens that covered the medallion? For the clear lens, I might be thinking of other cars from my past. I looked at the 5 or so Maverick gas caps I have and they are all one piece.
I've never seen any of the Maverick or Comet deluxe caps where the emblem was a separate piece from the clear lens. The clear acrylic (or whatever material it is) is molded with the emblem three-demensionally cut into the underside. It is painted from the factory on the bottom similar to how clear radio controlled car bodies are painted, then painted silver to "seal" it. I have seen some of the clear emblem/lenses sold NOS on eBay. The seller indicated they lived near the original factory that made that part and found them there. They sold for pretty good bucks as I can remember. It probably wouldn't look at good as an original one, but if a person would take the medallion graphic from Dan Hine's profile and size it properly, then top it with a new piece of clear plastic lens material, you might get a fairly acceptable result. I've checked on getting both the caps and just the lens reproduced and it's extrordinarily expensive. Maybe Joe can find someone to do it for a more reasonable price.
Yes - great tech article with pictures too! Thanks! http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=1072&highlight=deluxe+gas+cap+repair
Seems to me I remember a while ago someone was re-popping the center medallion and selling them on eBay....
