Finally got some good picts of my interior blue lights

[eagle97talon]

Afetrmarket lighter replacements like they sell at strauss or autozone or pep boys sometimes have green or clear rings searech there.

Thanks for the input-- Anyone have one of these or seen them? I'm eager to see some pics of the lighter ring in anything other than orange

 

[killab443]

I recently tryeed to take the orange backing off of my 1gs gauges. I could not get the needles off to gain access to the backing. I took the entire temp gauge out of the cluster and removed the 2 screws but the needles wont come out. any idea what I could be doing wrong

 

[beatshack]

The needles will pop off, I found it easiest just using 2 flathead screw drivers (careful not to scratch your gauge face) and pry the needles off, one screw driver from each side at the same time. They are a bit sticky getting them off the first time.

 

[beatshack]

Here's some pics of my dash. Right now the HVAC is a bit dim (2 LED's lighting it up) and the gauges are too bright (5 cluters of 4 led pod's; 20 led's behind gauges in total). I sanded off the orange on the back of the gauge faces, so now there is severe hotspotting, which you can kind of see in the picture. I also have pieces of paper behind the gauge faces to dim it down a bit and diffuse the light more, led tips are shaved, etc.. not sure what else to do to diffuse the light more evenly? Any ideas?

 

[Galaxy]

Glass frosting spray not soud like a good idea? I was thinkin it would serve the same purpose as the orange coating but be clear.I have my 5 LED's ,I was gonna play with my gauges this weekend so if I can I'll try it out and take some pics.

Thank you for posting pics!!!!!! I can see the hotspots you're talking about but that looks very good already.Maybe 20 LED's was a bit too much,haha.

 

[killab443]

The needles will pop off, I found it easiest just using 2 flathead screw drivers (careful not to scratch your gauge face) and pry the needles off, one screw driver from each side at the same time. They are a bit sticky getting them off the first time.

ok Does it matter which way the needles go back on? or does it reset itself when its powered up

 

[Galaxy]

The small LED in the end of my AC switch died today.I'm not sure if a connection was broken or if that small LED can't handle 3V but I'll pull it and find out.If its toasted,I'm gonna add another 100 ohm resistor and that should step it down enough and hopefully dim it a bit...it would almost blind you.

Hotspots or not,those gauges look good beatshack.

 

[beatshack]

Yeah, I forgot to add, getting the needles to line up after you take them off can be a real pain... its easy enough for the tach and speedo, but right now my temp gauge is wrong, my gas gauge is wrong.. It's tough to get them to line up.. i'd recommend marking them first before you take them off and be SUPER SUPER careful that the wire holding the needle doesnt move while you put it back on.

 

[gotchub]

i changed my neddle color to red. i have pics i will put up tomorrow if i figure out how. i got mine from importintelligence.com it is a real pain in the ass. if you cant get you spedo calibrated after i wouldnt recomend doing it. go check it out they look really cool

 

[killab443]

Hey beatsack Im considering buying the 4led leds that you did, but in green and just dropping them in w/out sanding. Im worried it might wash the color out a bit considing im not sanding out the orange. Im trying to make it match my greddy gauges. But it seems as if the greddy gauge color is washed out too just in its stock form. its not like a real bright green. what do you think?

 

[beatshack]

You might as well try and see what it looks like without sanding. The one thing you probably won't have is hotspotting like I do (shave the tips off LEDs to help this even more and increase light intensity). If you don't like the color, do some sanding.

 

[Galaxy]

I'm getting ready to address the hotspot issue in a little bit on mine by spraying translucent blue paint on the backs of the gauges,concentrated where the hotspots are only.I did this awhile ago to the whole gauge face and tried with the stock bulbs but it still looks greenish from the orange color that the bulbs give off.

If you do this without sanding the backs of the gauges,you will have dull miscolored gauges,read the thread,everyone that has done it without sanding was not happy with the results.

The needles will not reset themselves,you will have to do it yourself but just note your curb idle speed when the car is warmed up and put it back on at that speed with the car running.Do the same with the temp gauge,note where it is when your car is warm,then just put it back.The gas gauge on mine never moved but a piece of masking tape next to the needle never hurts to get it back on in the right place.As for the speedo,that one is tricky.You could just guess like I did and get very close or hop on the highway with a stopwatch....go the same speed between mile markers,and when you get it so it takes 60 seconds to get to the next one,you're doing 60 mph.Mile markers only vary by about 20 feet max so this should get you very close.

In order to make my needles show up better I took the red off the back and re-backed them with white,now they light up the same color as the gauges.

In the pics I have 5 leds of one color and 2 of another color...will be swapping them all to the same color soon as well as the turn signal indicators to match the nice blue high beam indicator.

The translucent paint I'm using is called Anodizit and its made to be sprayed on polished metals to make it look anodized.

 

[92_talonTSI]

nice looken inter

 

[beatshack]

I got some of that frosted glass spray, and spray painted the plastic pieces that go behind the gauge faces themselves. It did help with the hotspotting, but not a whole lot.

I'm currently in the middle of changing the needling backing from red to white, I'll post final results when I'm done.

 

[billys90tsi]

Very Very nice i really like it.

 

[Jaybone]

wow, my thread is still alive since 2002!.. i think 4 years is a record for a thread to be alive! wheres my award!! =)

 

[knighteclipse1]

I believe its in the mail...

 

[Byrd]

I think we can revive this one more time (CLEAR!)

Would you recomend to use single led's and space them out throughout the entire cluster to prevent hot spots? Yes it would be a pain in the ass/ time consuming but i think it would turn out cleaner no?

Or should i save me the time and buy indeglow gauges?

 

[MelloEclipse]

well, if you want the exact same look as his..without the white gauges that come with indiglo...

check out www.speedhut.com yea it'd run you like 130ish for the dash and the HVAC, but they look nice? just a suggestion.

 

[myeagleneedmods]

I just went the easy route and picked up some free flashing magnetic buttons from a show and stuck 1 under each side in the front

 

[knighteclipse1]

Well, I wanna that you for giving me the idea for my interior. Just love blue gauges.

 

[Galaxy]

As far as buying a bunch of leds and running them all behind the gauges,they may not fit unless you cut a bunch of plastic off.I would go for reverse indiglo gauges AND put the leds in the gauge cluster,that way your mileage is still not yellowish/orange and you can change the needle color to match the gauges.I like mine even though hotspotted and the blue turn signal indicators are just pimp.I'll order reverse glow gauges one day and be done but its fine for now.

 

[Eagalicious]

Just thought this would be some useful info for those with questions about LED's. Hope it helps

http://members.misty.com/don/ledx.html

John

 

[crsj333]

I don't know if i am over-simplifying this... but couldn't you just spray that backside of the gauge faces with a traslucent blue paint like like galaxy did, but put in white bulbs instead of the stock amber ones?

 

[Spyder1]

You could...but it would never shine or be as bright and look as good as LEDs would.....I've read through four years of information on this thing and as soon as i get time that's going to be my next mod....