DIY - LED Cluster Gauge Needle

[Mandarinsolara]

those maxima gauges and needles look so hott
i wish this was easy and less time consuming

[lilm]

ohhhhhh purty.........i can do this

[SleeperSolara]

Sleeper, are your needles colored at all? They do seem kinda reddish.
I'm dead friggin tired now, just got home from work. Tonight is my last night of work for a week so I'm gonna wait until tomorrow to do this, I need some sleep.

Yeah they were red when i got the car.
Isn't it suppose to be like that from stock????
"JMSinMaryland" what does red look like in the odometer.

[returnofthedack]

yea this looks like a great idea to do...time to find some blue leds for this one..

[WTF??]

Yeah they were red when i got the car.
Isn't it suppose to be like that from stock????

The needles are more of a deep orange to go along with the nasty green

When you put in the red 194's, the orange turn more red and completely blends in with the cluster... Its still pretty nice

[pythonjosh]

Yeah, nasty green is the best way to put it. It's like a plague of green all the lighting of the stock Solara suffers. I am happy to say there is not a single green lightbulb condom in my car, (won't say there's not a green condom in my car )

[SleeperSolara]

Yeah, nasty green is the best way to put it. It's like a plague of green all the lighting of the stock Solara suffers. I am happy to say there is not a single green lightbulb condom in my car, (won't say there's not a green condom in my car )

Same here.

[SolaraGuy22]

Very nice find, I may have to hit this mod up also. After you of course so I can get some tips.

[pythonjosh]

Definitely tomorrow man. I should be sleeping right now, but I can't sleep, and I don't have time to work on this either

[pythonjosh]

Ok guys, after dinking around with my cluster for a week, I have some results and conclusions. Given my tone it is not exactly good. The bad part is, those pics were definitely taken using a slow exposure and/or some photoshop. It is an absolute pain in the a$$ to glue/tape an LED in the right position for the best angle. The only thing I did with an LED was glue it facing the odometer, which turned out pretty good.
Now for the good news, and I think it beats using LED's. In the upper part of the cluster, behind the gauges, you can fit a 12" cold cathode tube. You kind of have to custom fit it. I had to cut off the block ends off the cathode tube, remove the cathode itself, the drill holes in the sides of the white part of the cluster to insert the cathode, while dropping in the plastic casing (in my case red) in that area. I wish I had a digital camera to show you guys what I'm talking about, but I don't think a lot of you will go this far for cluster customization to be drilling in the cluster walls.
Since a 12" cathode will only fit in the upper part of the cluster, I need to get a 6" or preferably 3" cold cathode to place in the lower portion of the cluster, which is directly behind the lower part of the speedometer and tach gauges. Don't know how long it will take me to get a 3" cathode, but I will try my best to find a friend with a camera to post up pics.
Another good thing. In the maxima link in the original post, it says sanding the underside of the needles, that turned out great! If you're gentle, you shouldn't have to worry about the speedo, tach, and temp gauges. As you know the gas gauge doesn't fall like the others do, so be really careful with that one. I did move the gas gauge needle as far as a quarter tank both ways, but I always returned it to it's original position and it works fine.
So as far as the easy stuff goes, umm, sand your needles, and get 3" cold cathodes and find where they fit.

[lilm]

i think ill wait for some pics

i def. wanna see how the needles turned out

[pythonjosh]

i think ill wait for some pics
i def. wanna see how the needles turned out

I def wanna see more pics of your avatar, who is that chick?

[lilm]

if i remeber correctly its Hiromi Oshima the first japanese playmate

freakin hot huh

[dominoSLEV6]

Reverse glow gauges don't hold a canld eto how hot that maxima's gauges look.

-chris

[pythonjosh]

Reverse glow gauges don't hold a canld eto how hot that maxima's gauges look.
-chris

I agree, but I'd still rather have an ES300 cluster