Outline Stroke does not seem to do anything

Hi, I followed instructions given on tutorials and in previous posts to change the stroke (which is the needle image) into an outlined shape that I could fill with a gradient, but as you can see from the screenshot, it looks exactly the same before as after I apply the fx. I expected the outer edge to become a path/outlined, but it still appears to have the line in the centre of the stroke and act like a stroke, I cannot select the outer edge. I tried both using the menu at the top in object>path>outlinestroke and also using the properties panel on the right under additional options... >fx.  I am using Windows 10 and dowloaded AI just this week. 

Also, I did try converting the needle image (which is made of a stroke) to a fill, like, I remember doing on Flash years ago in order to achieve the same thing. But it filled the image including the eye of the needle so I gave up on that as I didn't know a way around that. 

Please can you help with either of these issues so I can proceed! Thank you very much