Red LEDs in my instrument cluster?

[VicCrownVic]

Thanks Vic. I was going to be looking in to the clock next but looks like you did most of the research for me.

I took the rear defrost button out today at work and unfortunately the entire piece is made out of blue plastic and painted over chrome so that only the letters shine through, so I don't know if it's really possible to make that red... UNLESS one of the older models has buttons that aren't blue plastic, maybe, who knows.

If anyone can look at some of the pre90 boxes to see if those dash buttons are made of blue plastic I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

I was late to work today too cause my ignition lock cylinder did not want to go back in. Looks like I'll be leaving my dash tore apart until I can get some new speedo gears in as well... yay!

No rear defrost button on the pre 90 cars, they had a switch/lever on the control head for rear defrost.


(Taken from johnunit's post in another thread)

[BuffaloRider]

Oh...lol. Silly me.

I just blacked the inside of the button and painted the bulb red with this dye that we have at work that we put on bad parts. Oh well, looks like that's what I'm stuck with unless I can cut a segment out of it, replace the section with clear plastic, then somehow get a translucent piece with text written on it to place behind the clear plastic... thats a long shot for something so little though lol.

I just took the clock apart and that looks as easy as Vic suggested, in fact I think I'll grab that red gel filter sheet he put a link to, unless I can find something lying around that I can use.

[VicCrownVic]

If you plug the clock back in without the stock filter/lens, what color are the numbers?

I didn't want to go through the trouble of messing with the clock and rear defrost button since they were close enough to blue for my setup. Maybe if I get the time I'll try it, but that won't be any time soon.

[sly]

the clock is a vacuum florescent display and the lens is a dimmer. Without the lens it's just brighter.

[BuffaloRider]

Yeah, it looks about the same color as everything else, just brighter. I have an old pair of red sunglasses I popped the lenses out of to see if the clock light would shine through without looking too orange. Not too bad.



I hate to order such a large and expensive sheet of this http://www.ebay.com/itm/GAM-Color-25...item257e47aef7 that vic suggested but after searching the internet and local craft stores top to bottom for something cheaper I think this really is my best bet.

ordered some odo gears while I'm at it

[VicCrownVic]

Yeah, it looks about the same color as everything else, just brighter. I have an old pair of red sunglasses I popped the lenses out of to see if the clock light would shine through without looking too orange. Not too bad.

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I hate to order such a large and expensive sheet of this http://www.ebay.com/itm/GAM-Color-25...item257e47aef7 that vic suggested but after searching the internet and local craft stores top to bottom for something cheaper I think this really is my best bet.

ordered some odo gears while I'm at it

Looks pretty good.
I just threw up the first link I could find for that filter. Other than Ebay I'm not actually sure where to look for those unless you have a D.J. buddy. I know D.J.s used to use those filters (and probably some still do) over spotlights for colored spotlights.

[BuffaloRider]

I've been taking apart a spare climate control unit that I picked up at the junkyard a while back to better understand it's insides and exactly how the light is distributed. There's a plastic piece that collects the light from a single bulb (same bulbs as the instrument cluster) and spreads it out evenly with the help of a little sheet. But the real blue filter is on the little face pieces that are glued to the front so I carefully picked those out with goo gone and a knife. These don't sand down like the instrument cluster face though...




I tried sanding as lightly as possible with different grit sandpaper, with a brillow pad, slowly scratched out the letters of "MAX", I even tried taking the punch set from work and punching through the plastic enough to see the light shine through, that just bent it up though lol... Looks like shit. I spent an extra long time, got some really good light, an accurate scraper, and tried scraping the letters of "COOL" and "WARM" out as carefully and accurately as possible but as you can see below, it's just not good enough.




The only other thing I can think of (other than just giving up lol) is going to a kinkos (or something similar to kinkos because I believe they went out of business) and seeing if I can copy these pieces to the exact dimensions then print them out on the kind of sheets they use for projectors so that the lettering is clear. I might need to print a few and double them up to insure the light doesn't get through the dark parts. BUT I'd hate to do all that just to find out that it doesn't work lol.

I don't know though... that's all I can think of.

[VicCrownVic]

Getting pretty tedious now!
What if you took a piece of clear scotch tape, put it on the back of that panel, cut the letters out of the tape while it's on the panel... the more think about it the more I think this idea wouldn't work to well either.

How about cutting/melting the letters out with a hot nail/needle/soldering iron tip? Of course for the O's, A, and R you would need to leave some material to hold the center of the O in place. I've actually used a soldering iron with an old crappy tip to cut plexiglass before, it worked better than anything else I tried and didn't fracture the plexiglass.

However you end up getting it done it will definitely look awesome in red.

[sly]

try a dab of acetone on a shop towel and then rub the blue off. That would probably work the best for those thin panels.

[BuffaloRider]

Sly... you're brilliant. I didn't have any acetone lying around but my wife had some non-acetone fingernail polish remover that I tried out and it worked GREAT! You've just got to be really careful with it, I almost went too far just below the fan symbol.





I can't wait to get my dash back together because this IS my daily driver and I feel kinda trashy driving around with my dash torn apart lol. Still waiting on those odometer gears.

[VicCrownVic]

That pic with the panel held up to the light looks like it really turned out nice, even the detail on the fan symbol looks really clean.
One step closer to all red lighting!

[sly]

I know a trick or two.

[BuffaloRider]

Alright, I put the 0-140 cluster in and everything is golden...

EXCEPT

for this ANNOYING clicking noise that is coming from the cluster, it's driving me insane!

It clicks faster with acceleration but I can't quite tell if it's the odometer with the new gears in it, or the speedometer (please lord not the speedometer). I've been switching things around and fucking with it and even pulled everything out of the one white housing (that the lights are attached to) and put it into the other one and it still clicks. I just pulled the bigger odometer gear out (the little one is on there REALLY tight and won't budge) and I'm about to put the cluster back in to see if it still clicks. And if it does then I guess I'll try switching out the whole odometer housing from the 0-85gmq cluster.

Has anyone experienced anything like this clicking before? Because if I have to deal with this after all I've done... I don't know... I might just have to install a huge system and crank it up everytime I drive so I can't hear the clicking lol

THANKS!

[BuffaloRider]

The clicking sound is coming from the odometer but I can't yet pinpoint how the noise is being made or how to stop it. I know if I twist the odometer motor it kind of wiggles and clicks where it mounts to the clear piece of plastic that holds it all together. I dunno, I think I'll try to put some aluminum ducting tape on it to maybe hold it in place.

I could ad a dab of grease too and see if that helps, but I feel like that could be a bad idea.

It's just seems kind of weird the way it's clicking like that.

[sly]

add some graphite or lithium grease (or some other plastic friendly grease) to the final odometer gear on the digits and see if that sorts it. may also need a dab on the replacement gears just to shut them up if the one gear is slipping ever so slightly inside the worm gear.