Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Aesthetics New Interior mod

Well I was kinda bored so I went to radio snack and bought a ton of Leds and resisters, I think thats what they are. Anyway, I am turning every freen light inside the car to red, then the blue needles after I buy them...kinda like the VW look, anyway I think it looks SWEET!!! Sorry that I don't have any pics right now but after I do the dash Ill try to get some. So far I have all the doors done and the clock, The switches where a pain in the ass but are all done and look great, except for the driver power window switch, its not to bright but I remember the green wasn't very bright on it anyhow...did the power locks and also the door handle lights are now red...There really isn't much to do about the fog lights, light...but I did put some red plastic back there and it turned an oragne color, I'm the only one who see's that so im not worried, I jsut wanted to do soemthing because that light is so bright it bugs me when driving, its so much better now...Tell me what you think about this mod guys...

it is a great mod. i am half way there. post a pic whenyou get a chance. thanks.

Excellent idea. I'm in the middle of doing the same only it will all be in blue

Need pics, and maybe a how-to. I wanted to try it but I ws worried because I thought the switches had like a greenish transparency with white lights behind them, (At least I know thats how the headlight and gearshift lights in my ATX are).

I'm not a fan of the VW look but blue would look really sweet. how long did it take you to do everything obi?

After I wrote the post and noticed I wrote new interior mod, I was like uh oh, people are going to be like I did that a long time ago, just meant it was new for me Anyways, It took a couple hours, I first planned on just doing the door handle lights, then I was like well red and green isn't going to look that great so I ripped one of the switches out, seemed easy enough to put another LED in there so I did and it looks sweet, so I rupped all the switches out did them all, I would say it took a couple hours to do everything, I'm going to rip the dash apart today and see what kinda lits i find back there, I still have to do the instrument panel, havc controls and cig lighter. And a couple others...All and all its going to take a long time to do it all, but it doesn't bother me at all, I put the cd player in my shop on shuffle and I goto town!

It took a better part of the day do to, including ripping it all apart and putting it all back together. The hardest part was that you have to either find led's that will work w/ the current resistor or change that out also. 5mm led's are a bit too large but they will work in the switches. 3mm would be better though.

As for the color of the switches, they get their green color from a green led not an overlay like on the hvac panel. So you can put in what ever color you like.
As for changing the color of the hvac panel and the headlight switch illumination, you can either buy a new hvac panel to glow in blue or you can do what I plan on doing. I did this w/ my factory gauges when I got my new ones from BNM.

I took an exacto knife and scrapped off the overlay the causes it to be green from the back side, just over each number and cleaned it up with some not so harsh solvent. Then I used some blue celophane, dark blue as the light blue makes it look tealish/green, and used spray adhesive to secure it to the back of the gauge. You can hold it up to a light to see the color and add another layer if you'd like. It works really well, plus it makes the numbers glow a bit brighter than stock. I plan on putting the factory gauges that I did this way back in once I do the hvac panel too.

Oh yeah, and another tip: red led's are the least expensive and easiest to find where as blue ones are harder to find in a smaller size and are almost triple the cost of the red ones. And also, it is better if you can find led's that have a 180 degree viewing angle.

Well Mine is pretty much completly done and man it looks so much better than the ugly green. I had some problems with the HVAC panal, kinda screwed it up, so I might just have brad make me one if he still does. The gauge cluster looks sweet, I used a dremel and "rubbed" the green crap off the back...I used piant and painted over where I scraped off, I also did the headlight panal and painted the little light bulb inside the dimmer switch and rear defroster. I also changed all the led's int he switches already so its almost complete. Ill get some pics asap

JPETT, could you please tell me what combination resistor/led you used for the driver side door switch, I keep blowing the leds. I used 5mm blue for all the other switches, but the d/s door switch does not want to work. Please help me, Im so close

Sure can. Used 220 ohm resistors w/ the 5mm blue led's from radio shack. 1/4-watt resistors btw.