It looks hard, but it's rather simple and easy. If you have any questions, I'm free to answer them. If you want me to do it for you, I can do that too. Please read and follow the instructions in the Calibration section before starting. It is neccessary to determine where your needles "live" before cutting them off.
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What this DIY shows:
1. Key hints when putting indiglo behind the stock gauge face
2. How to make your needles glow with UV
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The DIY:
Ok, I started with this because I HATED the white faces of the indiglo gauges. So I started on figuring out how to put them behind the stock gauge face.
Here's what you will need:
1 master gauge cluster (the keeper)
1 extra gauge cluster
1 set of indiglo gauges
1 Dremel tool
1 fiberglass cutting wheel
Course and fine sanding access. for Dremel
Q: Why do I need an extra gauge cluster?
A: To get behind the gauge face, we need to remove the plastic needle from it's metal pivoting core. On other vehicles, you could just pull the needles out of the gauge cluster and replace them; but from disecting the electromagnetic core of the cluster, it is impossible to remove the needles and replace them. When you remove the metal core of the needle, it displaces a rubber bead inside the housing and then renders the needle un-usable. This is why we have an extra gauge cluster, available at your local junkyard or maybe your garage.
Q: What are the cluster differences?
There are clusters made by NS and Denso. The design differs between the two. As of today, 25May04, the DIY only applies to the NS brand clusters (identifed by the brand on the lower portion of the gauge face). This will change when I get my new Denso gauge clusters (in the mail right now).
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First step:
Pull the needles out of the master cluster. Take care in pulling straight up. This has two possible results. 1. the plastic needle face pulls off from its metal core 2. the whole metal bar comes straight out its housing
This will cause you to end up with some plastic needles. Yank the plastic needles off their metal cores if they did not separate already. We only want to save the plastic needle faces from this process.
Reference Photos:
The metal bar here is the needle "core" or "pivotal point." This is what actually rotates. The plastic needle face sits on top of here, but you can't simply pull it off. Even it it pops off the metal, the force it took to pop it off has cause irreparable damage to the core.
This is a photo of how the needle sits underneath the gauge face. The gauge face screws into the white blastic base, and the screws in the photo hold the assembly onto the cluster, and also provide the electriacl current to the needle assembly.
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Second step:
Remove the gauge faces. There are two screws in the middle of the tach and speedometer. The gas/temp face is just glued down. Each face has light adhesive holding it down, but peels easily.
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Third step:
This is when you use your Dremel on the indiglo faces. Use the course sandpaper to remove the paint, and the fine sandpaper to smooth it out for better illumination. Keep the sandpaper always moving. If you stop moving for any moment, it will melt the plastic. Keep the Dremel speed down also. You need only to remove paint where the light needs to cast out. For example, sanding the center is pointless and causes light to emit from around the screws. The end result is to create a large glowing surface that will sit behind the stock gauge face numbers.
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Next step. Take your dremel and cut the plastic needles off the extra cluster. The idea is to have the metal pivitol-bar in tact. This will be the core we use. Careful not to hit the gauge face with the dremel, you might want to use it later. Also, the needles have little metal weights, so don't be suprised when sparks start flying.
Just cut enough of the plastic needle-face off so that it will slide through the hole in the gauge face. You can finish removing the rest of the plastic later when the face is separated from the needle core.
This is what you are trying to accomplish:
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The idea here is to have the plastic needles from one cluster, and the acutal needle core and electromagnetic housing from the other cluster. If you gouge a little into the core, don't fret, as long as you don't cut it clean off.
Glue the indiglo discs down, then the stock gauge face on top. Install the screws. That will finish the indiglo face job. Note, do not put the needles back on. That's very important.
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CALIBRATION
Now you have little metal bars sticking up where your needles once sat. How do you keep proper calibration when putting the needle face back on? I figured it out.
1. Tachyometer
Before disassembling, you need to determine where your needle likes to live. Take your finger and rotate it around to the point labeled in the picture. Knock the needle around a little bit. It should like to sit right above the "C" in "MAINTENANCE." This will be the calibration point for the tach. If it's different, write it down somewhere.
2. Speedometer.
Same exersize. Take your finger and rotate the needle around to about the L in "FUEL." If I remember correctly, if you play with the needle back and fourth in super light taps, it should like to rest right above that point. Remember where your needle likes to rest. Write it down somewhere.
3. Gas Needle
This one is relatively simple. Once you're done with the project, get a full tank of gas. Install the open gauge cluster and give the cluster needle time adjust to read FULL. Put the needle face on a tiny bit, and see if it's still moving up. This is a try and try again operation. Tap it around with your finger. If you pull the needle down a little bit, it should want to travel up to FULL, but if you push it up a tiny bit, it should want to move back down a little bit. If the needle is pinned against its limiter, then it could be wrong. It should be floating just before its limiter.
4. Temp Needle
This is the easiest. There's two ways to do it. You can turn your motor on, and immediately put the needle face on pointing at the L. Otherwise, if it's warm outside, just go drive around a little bit and put the needle face on where you know your engine temp should be reading.
Calibrating
If you're wrong a little bit when you put the needle fac one, there's variable resistor for each gauge. So if it's reading 1K rpms, and you know it should be reading 800, then you twist the furthest leftt resistor a little till the needle is pointing at 1K. The calibrating resistors are underneath the black tape on the top of the cluster.
Now for the UV coolness. You can do this alone, without the indiglo.
What you need:
1 bottle Wal-Mart acrylic paint (glow in the dark, any color)
1 Wal-Mart sponge brush, smaller is better
2 12V UV-LED's (got mine off e-bay)
Here's the Honda lights next to the LED's I got.
I just notched each side a little with the fiberglass cutting wheel and twisted the light into place. Then soldered the connections down. Make sure the lights are soldered in the same polarity. They are diodes (one way current flow).
I just took a foam brush and did about 5 layers of the acrylic paint on the white portion of the needle. Came out nice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
What this DIY shows:
1. Key hints when putting indiglo behind the stock gauge face
2. How to make your needles glow with UV
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The DIY:
Ok, I started with this because I HATED the white faces of the indiglo gauges. So I started on figuring out how to put them behind the stock gauge face.
Here's what you will need:
1 master gauge cluster (the keeper)
1 extra gauge cluster
1 set of indiglo gauges
1 Dremel tool
1 fiberglass cutting wheel
Course and fine sanding access. for Dremel
Q: Why do I need an extra gauge cluster?
A: To get behind the gauge face, we need to remove the plastic needle from it's metal pivoting core. On other vehicles, you could just pull the needles out of the gauge cluster and replace them; but from disecting the electromagnetic core of the cluster, it is impossible to remove the needles and replace them. When you remove the metal core of the needle, it displaces a rubber bead inside the housing and then renders the needle un-usable. This is why we have an extra gauge cluster, available at your local junkyard or maybe your garage.
Q: What are the cluster differences?
There are clusters made by NS and Denso. The design differs between the two. As of today, 25May04, the DIY only applies to the NS brand clusters (identifed by the brand on the lower portion of the gauge face). This will change when I get my new Denso gauge clusters (in the mail right now).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First step:
Pull the needles out of the master cluster. Take care in pulling straight up. This has two possible results. 1. the plastic needle face pulls off from its metal core 2. the whole metal bar comes straight out its housing
This will cause you to end up with some plastic needles. Yank the plastic needles off their metal cores if they did not separate already. We only want to save the plastic needle faces from this process.
Reference Photos:
The metal bar here is the needle "core" or "pivotal point." This is what actually rotates. The plastic needle face sits on top of here, but you can't simply pull it off. Even it it pops off the metal, the force it took to pop it off has cause irreparable damage to the core.
This is a photo of how the needle sits underneath the gauge face. The gauge face screws into the white blastic base, and the screws in the photo hold the assembly onto the cluster, and also provide the electriacl current to the needle assembly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second step:
Remove the gauge faces. There are two screws in the middle of the tach and speedometer. The gas/temp face is just glued down. Each face has light adhesive holding it down, but peels easily.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third step:
This is when you use your Dremel on the indiglo faces. Use the course sandpaper to remove the paint, and the fine sandpaper to smooth it out for better illumination. Keep the sandpaper always moving. If you stop moving for any moment, it will melt the plastic. Keep the Dremel speed down also. You need only to remove paint where the light needs to cast out. For example, sanding the center is pointless and causes light to emit from around the screws. The end result is to create a large glowing surface that will sit behind the stock gauge face numbers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next step. Take your dremel and cut the plastic needles off the extra cluster. The idea is to have the metal pivitol-bar in tact. This will be the core we use. Careful not to hit the gauge face with the dremel, you might want to use it later. Also, the needles have little metal weights, so don't be suprised when sparks start flying.
Just cut enough of the plastic needle-face off so that it will slide through the hole in the gauge face. You can finish removing the rest of the plastic later when the face is separated from the needle core.
This is what you are trying to accomplish:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The idea here is to have the plastic needles from one cluster, and the acutal needle core and electromagnetic housing from the other cluster. If you gouge a little into the core, don't fret, as long as you don't cut it clean off.
Glue the indiglo discs down, then the stock gauge face on top. Install the screws. That will finish the indiglo face job. Note, do not put the needles back on. That's very important.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALIBRATION
Now you have little metal bars sticking up where your needles once sat. How do you keep proper calibration when putting the needle face back on? I figured it out.
1. Tachyometer
Before disassembling, you need to determine where your needle likes to live. Take your finger and rotate it around to the point labeled in the picture. Knock the needle around a little bit. It should like to sit right above the "C" in "MAINTENANCE." This will be the calibration point for the tach. If it's different, write it down somewhere.
2. Speedometer.
Same exersize. Take your finger and rotate the needle around to about the L in "FUEL." If I remember correctly, if you play with the needle back and fourth in super light taps, it should like to rest right above that point. Remember where your needle likes to rest. Write it down somewhere.
3. Gas Needle
This one is relatively simple. Once you're done with the project, get a full tank of gas. Install the open gauge cluster and give the cluster needle time adjust to read FULL. Put the needle face on a tiny bit, and see if it's still moving up. This is a try and try again operation. Tap it around with your finger. If you pull the needle down a little bit, it should want to travel up to FULL, but if you push it up a tiny bit, it should want to move back down a little bit. If the needle is pinned against its limiter, then it could be wrong. It should be floating just before its limiter.
4. Temp Needle
This is the easiest. There's two ways to do it. You can turn your motor on, and immediately put the needle face on pointing at the L. Otherwise, if it's warm outside, just go drive around a little bit and put the needle face on where you know your engine temp should be reading.
Calibrating
If you're wrong a little bit when you put the needle fac one, there's variable resistor for each gauge. So if it's reading 1K rpms, and you know it should be reading 800, then you twist the furthest leftt resistor a little till the needle is pointing at 1K. The calibrating resistors are underneath the black tape on the top of the cluster.
Now for the UV coolness. You can do this alone, without the indiglo.
What you need:
1 bottle Wal-Mart acrylic paint (glow in the dark, any color)
1 Wal-Mart sponge brush, smaller is better
2 12V UV-LED's (got mine off e-bay)
Here's the Honda lights next to the LED's I got.
I just notched each side a little with the fiberglass cutting wheel and twisted the light into place. Then soldered the connections down. Make sure the lights are soldered in the same polarity. They are diodes (one way current flow).
I just took a foam brush and did about 5 layers of the acrylic paint on the white portion of the needle. Came out nice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
only problem with some of the info you listed is that not all gauge clusters are the same. the ones you have in the pic are made by NS (listed on the far bottom of the speedo faceplate) - so to get an extra cluster to cannibalize to use for parts, you need one made by teh same company (the internals are COMPLETELY different... the DENSO gauge faces are a different shape and the paint on the back is done differently). and not all clusters have the adjustment knobs at the top of the cluster (my DENSO one doesnt). but very good writeup... its just people with other clusters will need to improvise some.
with 260k on her
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