• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

Sand/Mod green turn signals?

Trademark

CEG'er
Joined
May 31, 2003
Messages
132
Location
Renton Washington, USA
anyone know if it's possible to sand the signals down until the green is gone? I have indi gauges and I can't stand the green blinkers.. I want to sand them down and put blue LED's instead..
 
ok, so I went ahead and sanded the green off the signal blinker. I replaced the stock bulbs with red, it looks very very good.. FYI it was easy to do if no one has done it before..
 
I would definately do a how on the blinkers I think it is extremely simple, but there is already a great How-To (by BuckeyeSVT From FordContour.org) For Instrument LED's, showing how to solder and how it all fits in the bulb sockets. the easy part about the blinkers is the sanding.. just take off the gauges I think it's 10 screw and pop the black bezel off the front and you can easily take the turn signal filters off and sand the green off the backs. as for the LED's I'd suggest a good bright 180 or even 360 degree illumination bulb, right now all I had was a 26 degree illumination. I will try to get some Pics up someday but for now my Dig Cam is busted (sand got into it) so sry bout that. feel free to PM me for questions.
 
I would definately do a how on the blinkers I think it is extremely simple, but there is already a great How-To (by BuckeyeSVT From FordContour.org) For Instrument LED's, showing how to solder and how it all fits in the bulb sockets.

Don't you just love integrity? Nice to see it's still around.:)
 
How thin is the green layer in the turn signals? Because if it is like the HVAC, I wouldn't recommend it. Wayyyy to easy to sand through the black as well and then they are ruined.
 
Well matt,
it's actually not that bad, the black is actually the color of the plastic film itself and you'd have to sand like crazy to get all the way through that sucker.. the only problem I had sanding was I turned up my dremel too fast and it almost melted the plastic.. but I saved it so you can't even tell.. I was worried at first because the back of the plastic film gets really scuffed up and there was some scratches from the 60 grit I used.. but no worries they can't be seen from the front and the dark film covers any problem spots, just make sure that all the green is sanded from it or it will show spots when you use the blinkers at night.

Thanks for the props on my integrity guys, it means a lot to me and it's nice when someone notices.
 
Hmm, I'll have to give this a try. I think my red gauge cluster w/ blue turn signals would look really hwat.
 
I put a blue LED in place of the incandescent bulb for S&G to see how it would light up.

I used the LED on the right, which is a white #194 based 12V 6-led from Superbrightleds.com (part # WLED-W6):


This is the result (w/o sanding off the green). Note that the left is an incandescent:


And if you're curious about the little #74 base blue LED on the left, this is what I used it for:
Before:


After:
 
I might have to do this for the highbeams in my truck. Its in such a spot that I will miss it from time to time. :blackeye:
 
looks good to me, I enjoy my blue LED signals.. I just need to put in some 360 Degree ones instead of these crappy ones..

Which LEDs did you use? Maybe try one with a wider viewing angle? Or maybe try the Superbrightled 5-led that has 4 small side emitting LEDs and 1 larger LED shining forward.

I don't know what year your car is, but I know my early 98 SVT takes #194 based bulbs, so a #74 base will need to have the pins bent outward (like shown in my first pic).

These are the #194 base 5-leds: WLED-x5

And they also have these spiffy dohickies that are direct swaps for your instrument panel bulbs if you have the smaller #74 base: T1.5 & #74 LEDs
 
a wider veiwing angle is exactly what I was thinking with the 360 degree LED bulb. I dunno what I can do about the other kind of bulbs, I have already modified the sockets to take the LED with the Resistor(I've already soldered everything) so I just need to solder a better LED to it.

I like the results you get without sanding the green but it doesn't show a true blue color like mine does. I'm sorry I don't have pics but it looks like the Highbeam flasher before you used the LED, I don't think I would like the ultra brightness from those bulbs. I think if you do sand the green you will love the blue LED that shines through.

I was going to get some pics of mine but I keep forgetting to steal my parents digital.. mines got sand in it and my roomies was crushed in airplane baggage...
 
hey I got some pics of the blue signals! the first one is w/o the flash and you can see how it matches the same blue as my reverse glow indi gauges, of course the blue that I see is not the same color in the pictures, in real life it is a darker less neon color blue.
in the second pic I took with a flash so you can see the LED does not cover the whole signal which is why I need the wider angle LED, also you can tell the color is similar to the highbeam blue except it is a little bit brighter, but that same color blue.
I like how my gauges turned out, with the red temp and fuel needles and the clear speedo needle. and you can't tell that I modified the turn signals until they are on and you see the blue color.
 

Attachments

  • Gauges1.JPG
    Gauges1.JPG
    72.8 KB · Views: 0
  • DSCF2437.JPG
    DSCF2437.JPG
    91.4 KB · Views: 0
Back
Top