Will these gauge overlay's work?

Try to put the tape as close to the needles as possible, as that's where the trouble area is. Because if the gauge overlays protrude outwards, they hit the needle causing friction, yadayadayada you know what I mean.
If they hit a little, just do like I said earlier in this thread and use a fork like a crowbar and lift them up. you can have about 3-4 mm of open space under the needle and it still be attached properly.

Okay guys.. finally finished installing everything a few hours ago.. Everything turned out a LOT better than I had originally expected.

Now in the video they look a lot more blue than they really are, but they're not exactly white either. I was hoping for white and red, but its a white w/a blue tint to it. Looks OEM though, so not ricey at all.


Here's a quick video I made from my iPhone as well as some pics.



Link: http://youtu.be/V6iUInLEscw?hd=1 (make sure to watch in HD)












The gauges come with a relay and a dimmer switch that also allows you to change from whitish-blue to a green color as well (the red stays the same). The green color would match perfectly with the OEM lighting around the interior of the car. I ended up changing everything to red, so the whitish-blue color worked better for me.


I'll take some day-time pics tomorrow and throw em up. I wish I had a black interior instead of tan lol. These will look sick w/a black interior.


Let me know what you guys think!

congrats on the install. I ordered a set a while ago then read bad reviews on them from other types of cars and cancelled my order then bought some white gauges instead..Now I wish I didn't they really look great and kind of Oem!

Looks pretty good! Did you paint your needles? Also did you have to remove them when installing the overlays?

Thanks guys

After listening to the advice given on this thread, I decided to not paint them, and ended up wrapping with taillight tape. It didn't come out as good as I wanted, but it still came out pretty decent. And no the needles did not need to be removed to install the gauges.

Its highly recommended not to take them out (needles)

That looks awesome man! Nice job!

I want to put in overlays on my car too.
How did you change the needle and Mileage counter light color??
I want mine blue.

And how did you wire the gauges??


A DIY for this would be great.

Gotta Be Marc said:

A DIY for this would be great.

Click to expand...

+1

did these come with lights or something? or does it have some kind of film in the back to change the color?

Thanks a bunch for the compliments guys. I do have to pull the gauge cluster out again this weekend (left some fingerprints and dust inside the plastic lol). When I take the cluster out, I'll snap a few pics..


To answer some questions..

Needles
What I did: I bought red taillight tape/film from Autozone for like $5, and intricately wrapped it around each needle with a really sharp exacto blade. Since the tape has very little tack, i used a little bit of glue to hold it to the needle.

What I shouldn't have done: I made the needles clear (removed the orange color) by using rubbing alcohol with a q-tip. I had originally intended to paint them red with model car taillight paint, as its opaque, but some people mentioned that it had been done and doesn't come out so good, and that the tape was the best method. That's when I decided to go with the taillight tape instead.

Odometer and Needle Lighting:
I ended up converting the gauge cluster and climate control lighting to red LED's. I bought the LED's from here:
http://ledautomotive.com/category.php?id_category=11
They have car-specific LED kits and full installation instructions for each lighting panel.

Gauge Lights:
The gauge overlays themselves come with lighting already wired in. It's wired into the back of the overlays. There's 3 wires total, one comes off each gauge (tach, speedo, and fuel/temp), which all connect to one relay (included). I then wired the relay into the solid red-wire on the back of the cruise control button since the button lights up when I turn the headlights on. That will make the gauges light up everytime I turn the headlights on.

The gauges also come with a dimmer and a switch that's wired to the relay, it allows you to change the color from blue/red to green/red.


Any other questions, let me know.

NocturnalEvo said:

Thanks guys

After listening to the advice given on this thread, I decided to not paint them, and ended up wrapping with taillight tape. It didn't come out as good as I wanted, but it still came out pretty decent. And no the needles did not need to be removed to install the gauges.

Click to expand...

what kind of "taillight tape" did you use?
and where did u get it?

It's in my last post.. Autozone. It's just standard w/e they had on the shelf red taillight tape. I wish it was a bit more sticky, so if u find one that's stickier, go with that.