Rep Power: 360

Well im too lazy to add LEDs to the gauges like gearbox, so I figured I would put up with a little less diffusal of the light, and same myself ALOT of his work.
So you know it doesnt look this bad in person, but there is still a noticable difference in brightness across gauges.




On, night. shows trip odometer.


On night, showing turn signals and high beam indicator. Dont ask why my camera focused on the turn signals only.


On day


Off day


List of what was changed:
*Gauges changed to blue
*Needles cleared to glow blue
*Trip odometer changed to blue
*Key icon (with chip) changed to blue
*Turn signal indicators changed to blue
*High beam indicator now backlit with blue (lighter, brighter blue now)
*Cruise control indicator to blue (not shown since car was off)

How I did it (the simplified version):
1. Removed gauge cluster
2. Removed needles
3. Removed gauge faces
4. Scraped filter off gauge faces with sharp knife (back of gauge faces)
5. Cleaned excess filter/dirt off gauge faces with nail polish remover
6. Disassembled needles
7. Sanded needles on all sides to be clear
8. Reassembled needles, use superglue if needed (inside the needle ONLY)
9. Reattached gauge faces
10. Attached temp and gas needles
11. Turned car to 'on' and installed rpm, speed needles
12. Put cover back on gauge cluster
13. Removed all bulbs
14. Covered LED replacements with bulb covers **
15. Installed LEDs *
16. Tested, fixed, tested, fixed..... etc.
17. Take pics
18. Make this thread!


Links:
*LEDs were bought WITH plastic holders, which means 100% plug and play, from SuperBrightLEDs.com. LEDs are listed as "T1.5 Instrument LED bulb". At $1.79 each its a steal. I got 13 of them and have 1 or 2 left over, but I know I WILL find a use for them.

**Bulb covers help diffuse the light a LITTLE bit more than usual. I got them from PartsExpress.com. A single 10 pack, for only $1.70 +shipping, is enough. These really helped diffuse the light a little more.

NOTE
Bulb covers are useless on: Turn signal, high beam, cruise, and immobilizer (key icon) indicators since they will look exactly the same and don't need to be diffused. So 1 10 pack is enough if you want to go the extra little bit.

Post comments/questions here and Ill be happy to reply with answers.

 
Rep Power: 0

oh **** bro, that tight. great job, props to the hard work... post some days pics too!

 
Rep Power: 360

ill try to remember to take some tomorrow. all it looks like is exactly like stock... with white needles instead of red. thats it.

 
Rep Power: 360

New pics uploaded! Day time pics, odometer lit, and turn signal and high beam icons lit.

 
Rep Power: 0

Looks great!

 
Rep Power: 360

thanks. im surprsed no one else has replied. huh

 
Rep Power: 280

I have been wanting to do that since I got my car. I love blue lights. Maybe I will have to get it done sometime soon.

 
Rep Power: 360

well if you do I can give you a very detailed set of directions to get it done. its pretty simple, just time consuming and tedious. If you are good with electronics (like i am...) you could put the LEDs in the cluster and take out the bulbs. But if you are ALSO lazy (like me but with me its cause school for computer engineering is exhausting) then you can just get those replacement bulbs for a good price and deal with a little less defusal of the light.

 
Rep Power: 277

That's insane! I've always wanted to do that! I don't know enough about electronics to risk anything.. lol. Nice mod! Very unique!

 
Rep Power: 360

I can walk anyone through it. the electronic knowledge you need is basically 0.
If you can:
turn a screwdriver, unclip plasitc clips, and pull something straight up without breaking it (needles, not hard) you can do it.
Im going to start to write a DIY now cause its bothering me. notepad, here i come.

 
Rep Power: 277

Sweeeet! Once you do that i'll see how difficult it is and attempt it.. lol.

 
Rep Power: 306

its cuz the blinker light only came on and left, you moved after the light was captured for the pic

haha, just thought i'd share my two cents... but its a good mod mang! congrats

 
Rep Power: 360

well my DIY is written and basically ready. Im going to grab some pics from other threads and get it all together. ill put a link in here when its posted in a little while.

 
Rep Power: 360

Ok everyone my DIY is up:
http://www.7thgencivic.com/forums/sh...57#post3468057

that should do the trick and help you enough to do this mod! Now get to it!

 
Rep Power: 375

Do you have the link for gearbox's setup

 
Rep Power: 360

http://www.7thgencivic.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=137792

his pics are down though

 
Rep Power: 360

Looks good. I liek that color blue.

 
Rep Power: 0

still looks good even though you didnt go thru all that trouble. still looks pretty sick though

 
Rep Power: 264

man i'm really wantin to do that to my gauges except make them amber

 
Rep Power: 348

 
Rep Power: 360

thanks guys. anyone have questions about this or the DIY?

 
Rep Power: 0

where did you get that dual cluster guage pod ?

 
Rep Power: 360

ebay. and as you can see i dremeled it a bit so i can see the temp and gas gauges a little better

 
Rep Power: 0

Look's good. Hopefually i won't have to dremel cause i have an 03. How hard is it to wire up an autometer volt guage and aire anf fuel guage ?

 
Rep Power: 266

If I just cleared my gauges as you said in order to get white numbers (w/ the red needles) would this look fine or would I need to get white LEDs?

 
Rep Power: 360

Air fuel and voltage gauge both take +12v and Ground (obviously). They both have a lead for illumination, which I tapped off the orange/white wire on my headunit wire harness. Only other wire to run is for the a/f guage and its 1 single wire to the engine bay. check the DIY section for more info the the A/F install, but generally the voltage only needs +, -, and illum.


stock bulbs have a yellow/amber ish hue to them. you will need white LEDs for sure. I drove around cleared w/o leds for a few days and its like your parking lights in the headlights... somewhat white, but not white enough.

 
Rep Power: 0

Ya that really looks good. What have you tried to fix the hot spots?? As in, crushing the LEDs, sanding them down, or have you tried the paper recommended by Gearbox?

 
Rep Power: 812

if you do leds (which I am working on now too, you gotta just put more in and sand the tips, then place each one around closely spaced. Putting a white sheet of paper (or stencil film?) will help spread the light like how the 03-05 clusaters are setup. i'm still working on that.

 
Rep Power: 0

Sounds good, has anybody heard of a blue film, like a window tint that would work after scraping off the pain on the gauges...I suppose the stock bulbs wouldn't be bright enough and the leds would still create hot spots.

 
Rep Power: 0

look good!