Blue gauges in TA
Originally Posted by Z95m6
Just go to www.superbrightleds.com and get them from there. You don't need any resistors and all you have to do is get a few sockets from autozone and you are set for life.
Originally Posted by thetastelingers
TECH Enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 597
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by kraaazymike
For the gauges, i spent ~$38 shipped. the gauges dont need anything else just plug and play. For the LED's $2 for resistors and I havent found a good supplier for LED's yet, so I'm still paying way too much for them ($3.40 a piece @ 7 LED's) at a local electronics store. Most people buy them in bulk for like $50 for a couple hundred LED's or something like that.
Staging Lane
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 58
Likes: 0
Who has done the take the stock overlay off and scrape the red film away for their T/A?
I have gotten Everything apart and am at the point where I am looking at the back of the gauge overlay trying to figure out the best way to remove all the red (nailpolish remover, etc.).
I did a search a while back and came across a post where someone had suggested that this was the only way to do the led thing with a Firebird, using the stock gauge overlay. I never read on how this was accomplished.
I will try some goo gone or nailpolish remover tonight and see if that works.
Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
By the way, what if you had already taken off the gauge needles?
I have gotten Everything apart and am at the point where I am looking at the back of the gauge overlay trying to figure out the best way to remove all the red (nailpolish remover, etc.).
I did a search a while back and came across a post where someone had suggested that this was the only way to do the led thing with a Firebird, using the stock gauge overlay. I never read on how this was accomplished.
I will try some goo gone or nailpolish remover tonight and see if that works.
Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
By the way, what if you had already taken off the gauge needles?
I just made a quick little write up on changing the door lights to LED if anyone cares... http://www.mainstreamtopics.com/foru...showtopic=5564
Staging Lane
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 58
Likes: 0
I tried about 10 different things from paint thinner to goo gone to scraping/sanding.
I unded up dipping a Q-tip in Acetone, and after a few seconds, the red started smearing off.
The back of the overlay has the sticky film all over. When I first used the Acetone, it took a little longer to 'eat' through the film and get to the red (which came off almost instantly).
This proved to be messy, since the Acetone had time to spread out and soften a large area of glue before it actually dissolved the glue where I was wiping.
I wanted to keep as much of the sticky as I could for re-assembly, so I decided to use a razor and cut the sticky film just around where the red parts would be (a lot of cutting), and scrape the glue away before the Acetone part. You can't really tell in the picture, but it worked pretty good.
I was wondering if I should do a write-up, but since it was such a pain, I wouldn't want to put anyone through the process!!
I had gotten too far into tearing everything apart and just decided to go for it.
There are a couple of dim areas, but I'm not going to tear it apart anytime soon to fix it! It looke like there was some 'engineered shading' on the back of the overlay before I Acetoned eveything. I'm sure it had evened out the brightness a little. Oh well.
I will eventually convert the rest of what I can to blue.
I will keep everyone updated
By the way, I used the blue WLED-5LED bulbs (194 type) from superbrightleds. I had tried the single blue, but they weren't as bright and they didn't dim with the rest of the dash lights(just turned off after a certain point).
I unded up dipping a Q-tip in Acetone, and after a few seconds, the red started smearing off.
The back of the overlay has the sticky film all over. When I first used the Acetone, it took a little longer to 'eat' through the film and get to the red (which came off almost instantly).
This proved to be messy, since the Acetone had time to spread out and soften a large area of glue before it actually dissolved the glue where I was wiping.
I wanted to keep as much of the sticky as I could for re-assembly, so I decided to use a razor and cut the sticky film just around where the red parts would be (a lot of cutting), and scrape the glue away before the Acetone part. You can't really tell in the picture, but it worked pretty good.
I was wondering if I should do a write-up, but since it was such a pain, I wouldn't want to put anyone through the process!!
I had gotten too far into tearing everything apart and just decided to go for it.
There are a couple of dim areas, but I'm not going to tear it apart anytime soon to fix it! It looke like there was some 'engineered shading' on the back of the overlay before I Acetoned eveything. I'm sure it had evened out the brightness a little. Oh well.
I will eventually convert the rest of what I can to blue.
I will keep everyone updated
By the way, I used the blue WLED-5LED bulbs (194 type) from superbrightleds. I had tried the single blue, but they weren't as bright and they didn't dim with the rest of the dash lights(just turned off after a certain point).
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Staging Lane
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 72
Likes: 0
From: oklahoma
After some deliberating I finally decided to try to turn the interior blue from red. I know a lot of people say that it can't be done as there is red film yadda yadda. But after reading InfiniteReality's write up I decided to have a go. Thanks for the write up! Still gotta change out the headlight and HVAC overlays but the speedo and stereo controls are done 
Sorry if its hard to see during the day. If anyone is interested Ill take some night pics too when it gets dark. Heres a link to his site http://www.evlls1.com/interiorlighting.html
There is only one problem with using Camaro gauges in a TA, where the TA has the service light, the Camaro has the highbeam indicator. So whenever the car starts, I see an orange "service" light come on through the highbeam
oh well... you win some you lose some.
Sorry if its hard to see during the day. If anyone is interested Ill take some night pics too when it gets dark. Heres a link to his site http://www.evlls1.com/interiorlighting.html There is only one problem with using Camaro gauges in a TA, where the TA has the service light, the Camaro has the highbeam indicator. So whenever the car starts, I see an orange "service" light come on through the highbeam
oh well... you win some you lose some.
