Gauge Lighting, This Little Light of Mine Options

[timothy_nd28]

This is a tribute thread for the late Al Garcia, RIP

Many of us have issues with the inadequate lighting on our gauge cluster. This is a tutorial on how to increase the lighting for the DIY'er and for under 20 bucks.
Euro911 was nice enough to be the guinea pig, in which he donated his gauges for this build. I rate the skill level at around a 3. 1 being easy (adding blinker fluid) and 10 (setting up valve geometry).

1st step, remove the combo/speedometer/tach from your car. Alrighty, easy enough.

2nd step, drink a beer or two. This is somewhat unnerving and for the few it may turn you off. However, this isn't all that bad. We need to remove the bezel trim rings. I'm sure there is a machine out there that cost 15k, that will do this in about 10 seconds but we will use a small screwdriver. The first time I did this (my gauges) it took around 40 mins each, and I had a good size blister on my index finger. You will get a feeling that you are absolutely ruining these rings, but your not. Wedge the screw driver in between the bezel and the gauge can. Once your in, lightly twist back and forth the screw drive in situ pushing in a forward direction. By the time you get to the third gauge, you'll be a pro! I also found that it is unnecessary to uncrimp the entire circumference of the bezel ring. Once you get 3/4 around, the last 1/4 will pop off.




Now that these ring are off, go ahead and remove the insides. The tach will have 4 brass screws and the odometer will have 2. The combo gauge will have either 4 or 8 screws depending on the year.



Now that the inner guts have been removed, you should have 3 empty cans like this

We will need to clean the inside of these cans, for the best adhesion of the LED lights in a future step. I didn't use anything special, good old windex spray should suffice.

[mrholland2]

Oh, and are there LED instructions for the blinker indicators? Light/Bright light indicators? Oil/Generator? and Low Fuel?

Or do we have to stick with the old timey wimey light bulbs?

[timothy_nd28]

Oh, and are there LED instructions for the blinker indicators? Light/Bright light indicators? Oil/Generator? and Low Fuel?

Or do we have to stick with the old timey wimey light bulbs?

I'd stick with the old timey wimey incandescent light bulbs. The light port tubes for these lamps direct most light straight thru. The resistance on the LED lamps are not the same as the incandescent bulbs, and could cause a problem with the flasher module. On my car, I did replace the indicators lamps (minus turn signal indicator). I wasn't impressed at all, as there was no noticeable difference between the LED vs the stock lamps.

My next project will be the multi color setup, I will need a set of gauges from someone that is willing to let me try. I would also like to try a gauge setup with RGB led's. This would enable you to change the lighting to any color you can think of. The catch is finding a controller that turns on the RGB led's when power is applied to the controller. All controllers I've seen so far requires you to push the "on" button on the remote control for the LED's to turn on, this would be annoying. When you pull the headlight switch, you want the back lighting to come on with the headlight switch, not some silly remote control. So the search continues for the right controller.

[pcar916]

The catch is finding a controller that turns on the RGB led's when power is applied to the controller. ... So the search continues for the right controller.

Arduino microcontroller. You can make it trigger on any input you wish.... geez even temperature, vibration, ambient light conditions, whatever sensor you want to trigger on and with delay control as well. If you're ok with some breadboarding, this can run nearly the entire secondary electrical system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino

Cheap and many sources for both hardware and tutorials.

Good luck