Needle Color Change - Now With FAQ how-to!

[Morel]

Just a little hint (after playing around with it myself) on how you can change your needle color around. (it works best if you have the reverse glow gauges) since there's an orange film on the back of the stock gauges and it doesn't light up will thru it..

Go to a junkyard and pickup some needles from a late model nissan (they'll be the white ones) These pass on the color quite nicely to whatever color bulbs you have inside your cluster.

Add the fact that you can put colored LED's in the back of the cluster (thus replacing the stock bulbs) The color will transfer quiet nicely to the needles (And the illumination of the odometors)..

I'll be writing up a nice step by step (including pictures) tonight and hopefully have it posted by tommorow.

 

[GSTBlack95]

There is also a thread around here I think in the tech articals about the same thing almost.

 

[DGajre777]

Interesting... that's one way to do it!

Or you could:
1) Sand off the orange stuff from your needles, use a blue marker (for blue) and the light will pass through it.

2) Spend some money and go to www.importintelligence.com and pick up a needle kit. It looks like this:

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[Morel]

Interesting... that's one way to do it!

Or you could:
1) Sand off the orange stuff from your needles, use a blue marker (for blue) and the light will pass through it.

2) Spend some money and go to www.importintelligence.com and pick up a needle kit. It looks like this:

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I tried that, but the problem with that is with that blue marker it still is white light that comes thru. IT also doesn't come thru the blue paint all that well since you roughed up the one side of the needle to get the orange stuff off..

I was gonna write up how to turn everything blue (or red, purple or whatever) on the gauges to more match.. But eh :/

PLus that needle kit costs like 79.95 plus shipping.. Really not worth it for what materials you get.

 

[morbid_eclipse]

PLus that needle kit costs like 79.95 plus shipping.. Really not worth it for what materials you get.

true true...it will cost you much less to do it yourself...seeing how the prices of led's arent very much and well the needles...if you get them from the junkyard you can probably get away with them for free...

well morel cant wait for your writeup....ive been planning on doing this myself...just didnt want to mess up mine...like taking the paint off and actually being without my cluster for however many hours or even a weekend...i know it wont take a weekend but ya know...

 

[Morel]

Ok, here's my write up for changing you're needles to any color to match those reverse gauges you paid so much for!

There is a kit avail for this job, that prolly is a bit brighter then this way, and it's prolly a bit easier to put in. But lets face it. This way's ALOT cheaper..

Ok, This write up assumes you have read the FAQ on turning your interior lights blue (located at http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5282 )

Item List

6 Ultra Bright LED's (your choice of color) I'd recommend getting extra just in case you mess up. They're cheap on EBay.. I used 10,000k mcd blue ones.

Glue Gun
16 Gauge wire (if you can find some that has the line for negative it helps)
Electrical tape
Soldiering gun (if you choose to solder your connections. I just used the glue gun..
2 Large and 2 small needles from any late model Nissan (or any other car that has needles you like.. *important* you need to make sure they use the same system we have. Namely a small pin coming from the cluster it self. Our needles then go over those.
Drill with a small bit.
Needle nose pliers...



Okay lets get started!

I assume you know how to remove your cluster because you already have the reverse glows on, so i'll skip ahead..

Once your guage is out, flip it around and this is what we see.

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*note : mine looks a bit messed up since I didn't use the same wire for my negative connections.. ahhh. live and learn..*

Now remove those lights that are labeled. They come off with an easy twist.

Remove each bulb carefully (or while your at the junk yard, get a few extra bulbs from any mitsu you see there. They should have the same kind...

Remove the little metal clips inside each one.

Drill two holes on each side of the opening left thru the bottom of the now empty case.

Take your LED's and stick each pin thru a hole

Attach your resister to the positive side (using the method described in the linked post)

Repeat 5 times.

Fill in the gap with some hot glue (you'll know what I mean when you see what you have. Securely attaching the LED to the assembly. I bent the assembly opening so I could recess the LED inside it. But you don't have to unless you wish to.

Insert them back into the cluster. (you may have to play with it a bit to get them back in. Don't worry you won't break anything if you do. You won't be using the cluster power connections for this.

Now take your 16 guage wire and splice them in line with each LED (run both negative and positive wires) Securing them down with a dap of glue. (make sure you avoid running over the large openings in the back. Thats where the cluster's computer connections attach to the car! Also make sure you leave yourself plenty of extra length on the wires so you'll be able to attach them to a power connection.

Once you have the wires in there place, and all the bulbs are securely attached. Take this time to make sure all the LED's are working. If so great!

Now take your glue gun and encase all the exposed connections in glue.. This will help protect them from any friction you'll have, and to keep them from touching everything, and thus not working anymore.

Now flip it around.

Take the black cover and clear plastic covers off.

Remove the old needles from the cluster. I used one of those computer things that cover the back of unused computer slots Shaped like an L.. You can use a flat head of whatever you're comfortable with.

Start your car on, thus making your gas temp and Tach guages turn on.. and note the position they are in!

Turn car off.

CAREFULLY pry them off..

Start Car again

Put the gas/temp guage needles back on to pins slowly with even pressure in the same positions they were before.

Now we have to put the speedo back on.. I got a buddy and had him drive down the road at 5mph and put it on with me following him. You can use any way you feel comfortable with. But I seem to have done good with this.

Review your installation and check for loose connections, exposed wires, and just do a once over with everything. Because taking the cluster out again is a PITA.

Connect the positive and negative wires to the same place you put your reverse glow power wires on..

Replace black bezel and clear glass (I didn't put my glass back in so I could get my speedo synced again. But this is personal preference when you want to do this step.

Carefully put cluster back into car making sure your connections are still working, and you don't pull any wires out.. reattach the final black piece and look back at your handy work!


Here's a picture of my final results.. (sorry about the quality, but old digital cameras aren't well suited for night time stuff.. )

Also the needles are alot brighter in person then they are on this pic.. Stupid camera.. (and im still playing with the position of the gas guage... )

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***** NOTES****


LED's are directional. You may want to scuff up the top of the LED to defuse the light a bit. And you may have to play around with the positions of the LED's since some may line up better then others, and come thru the needles more..

Before you put your cluster back in, make sure you're happy with result. Because if you wait for it to be back in before seeing it at night time and you don't like the results (due to misaligned LED's or whatever) You're gonna hate having to take it all out again so you have to play with it.

I've done this 6 times this week.. Trust me. it's a PITA..

I'm happy with the results and it matches much better with the rest of my interior then those orange ones did!

Total Cost

$1.50 for the needles from the junk yard
$7.00 for 20 10,000 mcd LED's and resisters from Ebay

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PS. This is my first write up. So I'm sure it's not the clearest in the world. But I try

 

[DGajre777]

That looks nice!

 

[morbid_eclipse]

cool! thanx for the write up...im seriously thinking about doing this soon...the more i look at those damn orange lights the more and more i want to do this..maybe ill do this sunday...and go get the stuff on saturday...