Whatcha think of these gauges?

[TeamExploder]

I bored yesterday and been wanting my gauge color to be different so I took one apart to see how it would turn out. Want to do the bottom red and the top blue (but didn't do the blue part yet in these pics) and then opposite for the one that will sit beside it. What do ya'll think of it?

 

[wvcat]

I like the red, not sure about the 2 tone until I would see the whole picture. Great idea.
John

 

[TeamExploder]

Yeah, I've tried the blue and it don't look too great looks clowny lol so I think I'm just doing red.

 

[bullitt]

I like the red alot, i thought of doing that to mine when i tear into it later this spring, now i think i'll do it for sure after seeing how yours turned out.

 

[Black'03LevelII]

quick question

how did you change the color?? my guages are all green and I want them to be yellow to match the rest of my color scheme.

 

[dogboy]

I am curius too, how did you change the color? Did you just replace the clearish green plastic with clear-red plastic?

 

[TheDanger2801]

i also would like to know how you did that.

 

[TeamExploder]

Ok well I did this with extra gauges so I didn't tear apart my dash to find out it'd ruin my gauges, I took the little motors off that turn the needle then carefully pry the plastic piece off that holds those in place then took small flat head screw driver and gently scraped off what appears to be white in a green outline on the back of the gauges then held up to the light to make sure it was scraped clean and rubbed it with soft material then called the local Jo-Ann fabric since its the only hobby type store around here and asked for Glass paint, and went up it was about a dollar a bottle, there are different types of glass paints though that will show through the red I used was called Christmas red. I just filled in where I scraped off, just be very careful you don't scratch too hard and puncture the gauge plate itself.

^Better pic, this is with trying with the blue but looks like crap to me.

sorry it took awhile to get back to ya'll never got an e-mail saying I had new replies to the thread and was busy.

 

[dogboy]

Cool! So I am assuming you painted the back side as opposed to the face, correct? Is it hard to rescrape once you have painted on a color (say you don't like the new color)? You could scrap off things like the battery logo, or the coolant logo right? And, sorry, but one last question, when you look at the gauges in the daylight, now they will be what ever color you painted them correct (as opposed to white like they used to be)?

I am wanting to do this now!

Thanks for the cool idea!

Now all I gotta do is try and figure out a way to make the backing (doesn't light up) have a slight blue glow to it. My mom's Mazda3 has gauges that are whiteface in the day, but when the lights are on, the backing glows slightly blue and the numbers are red, looks awsome.

 

[LoneRanger93]

I was thinking about doing this too, why not just get blue (or any color) LEDs instead of painting the back of the guages after removing the green color?

 

[TeamExploder]

The guages during the day are pretty much just white faced like normal and the prob with the battery logo is, they're yellow on the front so probably won't make much difference I don't think and they were painted on the back side, and about the LED Idea, that maybe possible, I just wanted to make sure it looked good, it's probably darker this way as opposed to the led lights.

 

[dogboy]

Awsome, thanks for all your help, I will be doing this soon!

 

[TeamExploder]

Yea no problem, Also I never used a paint brush with this, I had a bottle of paint that had kind of a tip to it so I made a bout 5 drops of paint and let it settle itself then after it looked settle I slightly put it up to the light to make sure spots were to lite and take a clean tooth pick and pushed little paint to that area.

 

[dogboy]

I just noticed this today (never have before), the logos on mine (gas etc.) are green and lite up just like the rest, they are not yellowish like yours..

I think maybe a darker blue that maybe gave more coverage might look alot better than that blue does.

 

[TeamExploder]

You could be right about your gauges, my spare gauges are from a 91 explorer I junked.