Update, Factory Radio Color Change pics page 3

[Solorange]

I know this topic has been beaten to death and Ive searched for like an hour and could not find all the answers to my questions, so I need your guy's help to fill in the blanks. I want to do the guage cluster in my car. Ive seen a post a while ago were someone did blue for the background with red needles. Its was very intense too. I couldnt find it. My plan is to do a purple background with red needles. (aka volkswagon style. I love my friends cabrio interior.) My questions are:

1. In order to make the needle red, how do i seperate this color from the background. Is there certain bulbs just for the needles?

2. Do I have to remove the orange backing on the needle to have a red light?

3. If found that I only need 5x 194 wedge bulbs or leds. Is this true?

4. If i have to remove the orange backing, I plan on doing the nail polish remover method, but is there anyway I can screw up the calibration of the needles? Like if I move them. Or are they just computer controlled and moving them will not hurt them?

5. I also need to do the ignition light which will be purple. I believe its just one #74 bulb or led. My concern with this is how to get to the light. I found the tutorial which is attached but I just wanted to make sure that I can use a flathead screwdriver to pop off the cover that goes around the ignition and im not talking about the black ring. Im talking about the piece that is the same color as the dash. If that is true. Were is the best place to stick the screwdriver to pry off the cover without doing any sort of damage? Any other tips on this would be greatly appriciated.

Here are links of the pages i found but i could not find the answers to my questions. Thanks for your help ~ Chris

http://www.solaraguy.org/viewtopic.php?t=23707
http://www.solaraguy.org/viewtopic.php? ... sc&start=0

[Duffman]

1. In order to make the needle red, how do i seperate this color from the background. Is there certain bulbs just for the needles?

No - there are only five bulbs, and the bulbs light up a plastic... thing. The needles grab their color from the bulbs in the cluster. The only way to give the needles a separate color would be to use white light bulbs and color the needles the color you wanted. You might also try doing some custom work, and angling some red LEDs towards each needle cluster.

2. Do I have to remove the orange backing on the needle to have a red light?

No; but if the needle backing is orangey, it will be an orange-red color.

3. If found that I only need 5x 194 wedge bulbs or leds. Is this true?

Yes, if you only want one color in the cluster. Just five lights. I'd suggest checking out http://www.autolumination.com if you need some inspiration for lights.

4. If i have to remove the orange backing, I plan on doing the nail polish remover method, but is there anyway I can screw up the calibration of the needles? Like if I move them. Or are they just computer controlled and moving them will not hurt them?

You can very easily jack up your needles. Here's how I took care of the problem of lining them up:

For the temperature needle, get two small pieces of paper tape (painter's tape) and put a small piece of tape on each side of where the needle rests cold. Do the same thing for the gas gauge, except that you will tape it where it's at right now.

For the speedometer and tachometer, there's several ways to get it "more or less" accurate. My suggestion is to find an empty road, get yourself to 45 mph in your top gear, and remember EXACTLY where your tach and speedo are at. When you put your needles back in place, put the cluster back in WITHOUT THE CLEAR COVER or the outside bezel. This is why you need an empty area - because you are going to remove your needles while driving. Get a friend of yours to drive beside you at 45 mph; match speed with him, set your cruise and put your needle in place on the speedo. Then you put the tach where you memorized it to be at. Problem solved. You can also, if you can get access to one, use one of those drive-by cop speed trap units, or talk to a cop with a gun. You *can* jack things up, but a little planning in advance can save you a lot of trouble. Also, if you need to check the accuracy of the tach... just red-line it and see where it stops at

5. I also need to do the ignition light which will be purple. I believe its just one #74 bulb or led. My concern with this is how to get to the light. I found the tutorial which is attached but I just wanted to make sure that I can use a flathead screwdriver to pop off the cover that goes around the ignition and im not talking about the black ring. Im talking about the piece that is the same color as the dash. If that is true. Were is the best place to stick the screwdriver to pry off the cover without doing any sort of damage? Any other tips on this would be greatly appriciated.

Not a freakin' clue. Sorry, bro.

[lilm]

on the purple ignition ring ya you just pop that sucker out.....i do alot of car audio stuff so i got one of those interior screwdrivers and poped it out.....just be careful

[AznDragonV]

hmm when i put in my reverse glows, the needles moved around, but it didnt seem to do anything to mess them up...

[Duffman]

hmm when i put in my reverse glows, the needles moved around, but it didnt seem to do anything to mess them up...

If you move them, it's one thing; removing them is completely different.

[Solorange]

hmm when i put in my reverse glows, the needles moved around, but it didnt seem to do anything to mess them up...

If you move them, it's one thing; removing them is completely different.

So what your saying is if I take the cluster out of the car and the needles completely out of the cluster it will screw it up. I can understand that. But if I take the cluster out of the car and do not remove the needles out of the cluster and if the move around it will not ruin the calibration?

Thanks for all the help. I think I can work on it now and do some experimenting. Im also thinking about making all the gauges orange to match my car. That would be the easier route.

[Sap Z]

hey chris^^

i'm very interested in this project too.

i tried searching quite a bit but did not find a DIY on how to take the gauge cluster, the AC/heat contorols out to switch the bulbs.

also the 194 bulbs that you use - r they the same as the 194 bulbs used for stuff like the licence plate ?

thx a lot dude.

-sapan

[Solorange]

Ive been told that they are 194 wedge bulbs on the guage cluster. Im going to get 194 led bulbs. I image they are all the same socket. The shapes may be different. Im actually going to go open up my cluster right now and figure out what im going to order and what i need to do. The hvac controls are some weird bulb that you cant buy. Ive heard of people coloring them with a sharpie marker or painting them with nail polish. Actually now that I think about it I think when I first got my car I had a burnt out bulb in the hvac. I had this problem of not finding the correct size so I just force a different size in and it works fine. Im going to have to take that apart and find out what size i put in. Ill let you know.

[WTF??]

Not sure if you saw this: http://www.solaraguy.org/viewtopic.php?t=22189

anyway, i heard LEDs burn hella quick
and yes the needles are pretty sensative so be careful

[Duffman]

Good luck getting the LED light to come out evenly... I've yet to get them to look right.

[Solorange]

Yeah so I pulled out the cluster and took it apart to get a good look at it and try to figure out how I would do it and it looks pretty rough. I dont think its possible to get a led to shine right up under the needle cause the springs and gears are in the way. I agree with Duffman it looks like it it would be hard to get a good even uniform light up there. It also just comes down to it being more work than I anticipated and I dont feel like dealing with it. But while I did all that I pulled all the green condoms off and now I got white lights. It looks retarded still, cause its a yellowish white. Also i checked my hvac controls and I did put a #74 bulb in were those odd sized bulbs are. It works, I dont know if anybody else has done that.
Oh yeah and I broke the the two plastic stub clips that hold the bottom part of the black moding around the cluster. I dont think I would have gotten it off without breaking them. Im sure the best of us all have done it and its not like it will not hold anymore so oh well.

So what do you guys think? If i just get the purple leds and leave the needles red. Do you think the needles will still look like crap? Or do you think the redness of the needles will still look red with purple. Afterall purple is a product of red. If not I think im just going to get all orange leds and go that route. Im going to have to try to make the clock orange too.

[Solorange]

Well I guess im going to go all orange since nobody has an idea on the purple with the stock red needles. Ill post pics of results. Also does anybody know were I can pick up some tiny lights for circuit boards for the stock radio? Im gonna modify that too. Thanks

[Duffman]

http://www.lsdiodes.com/

The radio project is... ambitious... I've seen a link in the Tutorial forum about it, but it's a LOT of work. Soldering experience required.

[Solorange]

http://www.lsdiodes.com/

The radio project is... ambitious... I've seen a link in the Tutorial forum about it, but it's a LOT of work. Soldering experience required.

Yeah I got a little soldering experience and my roomate is an electrical engineer who has some soldering ability so i think the two of us can knock it out. I dont care if i screw it up cause I got an extra stock radio just sitting around. So we will see how it goes! Thanks for the link!

[hskrsolara]

^^you have any pics of the hvac?