Today I ordered some blue LEDs from Superbrightleds.com to replace the backlighting in the gauge cluster. In the past I used their products and was reasonably happy with the results, but there were lots of hot spots on the face of the gauges because the LEDs were directional. This time I discovered that they have a new "bulb" assembly that has one LED facing forward and five aiming out the sides, so the light distribution should be better this time around. They should be here early next week.
The next step was to change the color of the needles. When I was at the junkyard today I snagged a needle from an open gauge cluster to experiment on. I have now successfully changed the color of the needle to bright red.
Here are my tools: a pen light, the needle, electrical tape, and a red sharpie.
I stuck the needle on the end of the pen light using the black electrical tape, to simulate the light from the gauge cluster:
Here it is lit up in its stock form:
After that I colored it very carefully with a fine point red sharpie:
Here it is lit after coloring it. Since my camera is horrible at exposing in the dark, the actual color of the needle is very washed out. It glowed the color that it reflects on the counter below it.
Once the LEDs arrive I will do this to the needles already on the gauge cluster. My only concern is whether the blue backlighting will give a good red color. If not, I'll rig up some red LEDs directly behind the needles.
