Gauge cluster color chagne, interest

[Matt R]

I'm trying to gauge interest for having me change the color of your gauge clusters. You would remove the gauge cluster, send it to me, I would change the light-up color of the stock gagues, and send it back. Included in the price would be:

• Return shipping
• Removal of green from gauge faces
• Installing 5 LEDs, color of your choice, from superbrightleds.com

Anyone that has done this themselvs know what a pain in the butt it is, especially removing the geen and getting the little bulbs out. I would charge $35 total. (LEDs are about $7 for 5, $7 shipping, and the other $21 would be for labor.

Some issues that would be involved though:

• You won't have a cluster for a week.
• The needles would have to be recalibrated.

Please post interest.

[muskamike]

I've seen this done before from SHAUTOTRENDS. This is the link to the old group buy that seemed to fall through for alot of people?

http://www.contour.org/ubbthreads/sh...&o=7&fpart=all

I would be interested, but only after seeing some pictures, etc.

[CSVT1214]

I'm interested, but I'd like more details on how this is done first.

I have attempted this myself, and while the results were OK, they were not just the same as stock with a different color. It was obvious they were modified because it was too hard to replicate the quality of stock.

Removing the green film on the gauges was extremely hard to follow the shape of the numbers and lines without creating circles in the areas that were sanded. So I decided to sand the whole face, which came out fine, but when they were lit, the gauges were too bright because the whole face would glow, and just glow brighter for the numbers and lines.

[muskamike]

Seems S&H are selling on Ebay now?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/FORD-...28620637QQrdZ1

[muntus]

Seems S&H are selling on Ebay now?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/FORD-...28620637QQrdZ1

They were selling on Ebay during our group buy.

[Matt R]

For anyone here, you may remember the Mobil 1 badges GB I conducted here. I'm not about to go out and screw anyone over, trust me. Check with many people on this forum.

The way I would do it:

Remove the needles very carefully with 2 spoons. The slowly peel back the face off the plastic. I also break off the plastic light channels only on the speedometer to eliminate some bright spots. To remove the green, I do it very carefully by hand with perscision screwdrivers. Trust me, it is a ton of work. Then the gauges are washed, and reattached with emblem adhesive. To do the bulbs, I take out each bulb trying to pry or pull it out, and getting any pieces out. Then I take the LEDs and bend the pins to fit, and slide them in. These are the LEDs that have the resistors built into the base.

The gauges, when finished, would appear identical as they do now during the day. At night, they would light up w/ the color that you choose from:

• White
• Blue
• Green
• Red
• Amber
• UV/Blacklight

Now some points. Some colors will be much brighter than others. Intensity is very important. Listed are the intensities for the different colors:

• White- 6200
• Blue- 1860
• Green- 9100
• Red- 5600
• Amber- 6400
• UV/Blacklight- 1020

So as you can see, the blue ones will be significantly dimmer than the green ones. I did mine in red and they are nice... not as bright as stock, but good. I'll try to get a few extra pics of mine later. Please keep in mind the numbers are sharp, like stock. The low light to capture these makes it appear blurry.

[CSVT1214]

Wow, I will say that is awesome work. I'm very interested in these now.

Can you post some other pictures with full shots of the gauges lit up?

[Matt R]

I'll try to get some pics tonight. Hopefully they won't be as blurry.

[hotdimmes]

any chance at a matching hvac/hl switch set?

[CSVT1214]

any chance at a matching hvac/hl switch set?

While I feel S&H should not get crap from this forum for money, I think that might your only route.

The gauges just weren't right for me in the end. They did not have that factory look to it, but the HVAC was exactly what I wanted. Looks amazing at night.

Modding the HVAC panel is extremely hard because of the overlay that Ford uses from the factory. It's very thin and difficult to work with.