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.

[timothy_nd28]

Step 2 made me forget to take pictures of reassembly, for that I apologize. After these LED strips are installed, go ahead and reassemble each gauge. You will need to hook in the bezel ring (the small area that you didn't uncrimp) and pop in the rest. With your screw driver, carefully push down and re-crimp the bezel to the gauge can. This step is pretty straight forward.

This is what it should look like after reassembly. Notice the pretty color on the needles






Now onto the wiring. We need to build a harness to jumper all the grounds together. You should have a brown wire that ties to the combo gauge, so we need to splice into this, without cutting wires.



I should of used brown wire instead of blue, but this is all I had laying around. Obtain a piece of wire about 20" long or so. On one end, add a insulated 1/4" female terminal. Going from that terminal you just installed, move in about 10" and add another 1/4" female terminal. The opposite end of the wire gets abit squirrelly. We need to add 2 more female terminals and a male terminal (see picture). The male terminal will plug into the car's brown ground wire. The female on that end will plug onto the gauge where the brown used to go. This leaves you with 3 female terminals on the harness you just made that will plug into the (white) wires on the LED flex strip. White is ground on this flex strip, whereas red is positive.




Towards the wires from the led flex strip (protruding the light tubes) you'll need to add male 1/4" insulated terminals to all the wires. This will mate with the harness you made with the car's electrical connectors. This makes for a pretty clean install. Keep in mind that the white wires are negative (ground) and the red are positive (+12vdc)

Here is a diagram borrowed from Jeff Bowlsby's website to help aid with re-installation.