I never tried that. At the time, temp gauges were plentiful and not so outrageously expensive, so I never bothered to try to fix one. One caveat though, I'm ASUMING it was the return spring that was distorted. It could, of course, have been that semi-circular expansion gizmo inside the gauge that took on a permanently over-extended shape. Come to think of it, if that were the case, it might be possible to squeeze that back to its original dimensions.