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.

[bperry]

I re-did my '74 gauges (tach and speedo) back in the late 80's
I repainted the needles and cut out new glass for the tach.
I was surprised that the tach used a plastic lens.

I have a few words of caution when painting the needles.

Make really sure that the paint on the needles is really really fully dry before
you re-assemble the gauges.
Perhaps even hit it with a heat gun a little bit to cure the paint.
The problem I had was that soon after I put the gauges back in and
the temperature got HOT here in Texas, the needles on the tach and
speedometer started sticking to the resting post and they finally
got permanently stuck.
It SUCKED!
I had to fully disassemble the gauges to free
the needles.
I ended up heat curing the paint a little bit and puting a tiny bit
of vasoline on the post to prevent any future sticking.
So far so good....

What really sucked about the speedo is that I already had to
open it up twice before.
- Once to fix the odometer to get it to work again.
- A second time because when I was puting it back together
for the odomenter fix, the original paint on the tip of the needle chipped off.
(originally I wasn't planning on re-painting the needles)

-- bill