Red LEDs in my instrument cluster?

[BuffaloRider]

I recently put some cheapo red LED's in my 90cvpi instrument cluster and they look like shit. Notice how the light doesn't even come out of the white lettering. It looks like the plastic kind of filters the light to make it green so I'm wondering if it's blocking the red (for lack of a better term) Do I just need brighter LED's or is it even possible to put red LEDS in one of these instrument clusters?



And any info about changing the other interior lights to red would be great, mainly the clock and defrost button.

[1990LTD]

Wasting your time. Need something that the green filters will let through.

[BuffaloRider]

*palmface* that's what I was afraid of... WHACKNESS!

[gadget73]

take the cluster apart and remove the filters. They'er just plastic domes. Not that difficult to tear apart the cluster either. Bunch of screws around the clear faceplate to remove that and a couple on the back lets the innards pull out through the front. Then you're left with a white plastic box that has the green plastic domes inside. They just sit on little pegs to locate, they should just pull right off.

[BuffaloRider]

See now I'm just confused because that's what I thought I heard ppl mention before that there is a filter/filters that you can easily take out. Yesterday I took apart my 0-85 gmq instrument cluster and I don't see anything of the sort, maybe they've already been taken out on my gmq speedo? I don't think so but I'm about to take my dash back apart and pull my 0-140 speedo out and I'll post some pics of it when I do.

From what I've read on these forums I know that you're rarely ever wrong, but is it possible that you're thinking of an older or newer instrument cluster gadget?

Either way, now that I've gotten a taste of what the red instrument cluster could look like, I WANT IT! BAD!

[85crownHPP]

What kind of cheapie bulbs?? I have blue old-er style ones in my 91 and they do great!

The older speedos do have the blue-green caps you need to pop off, but I pulled a few clusters where they were crumbled to dust. The newer 90+ speedos don't, they use a blue/green film that covers the whole face to color the light. This is probably why not much red gets though. Also the newer clusters are a shine-through type instead of the older shine-around illumination. The 90+ clusters actually have a type of old school fiber optic material in the face that has little collectors right on top of the bulbs . You can see it if you pull it and look down in there.

I bet if you change to blue or green it will work great. I have one in my HVAC controls in this pic too - notice you don't see much of the red half of the temperature slider.

[VicCrownVic]

Yeah, my 0-85mph cluster in my 91 MGM do not have the filters either, but that doesn't mean the 0-140mph cluster doesn't have them.
They will be the same blue color that you saw when you took your rear defrost switch apart, the reason being the stock lighting is not truly white but more of a yellow, so yellow and blue make green.

Now when I put my blue LEDs behind the red warning lights you could not see them at all because the red cancels out the blue, same will be true in your case, the blue filters will cancel the red light. So it sounds likely that your 0-140mph cluster does have the filters, but I wouldn't know for sure since I've never seen one.

[VicCrownVic]

The thread where 85crownHPP discussed this previously: http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthre...r+of+blue+LEDs

I think red would look better than blue or green in your car still. I can't seem to find it but I'm pretty sure I've seen someone with red LEDs in the cluster, although it may have been on an 89- cluster.

[gadget73]

red is better for night driving. I'm giving serious consideration to move mine back to stock. The blue is beginning to annoy me at night.

[BuffaloRider]

Thanks for all the information everyone!

This pretty much sums it up

Well its under the face of the speedo, sandwiched in there. I took apart one in the junkyard and it seemed like you'd ruin it trying to get that layer out, but maybe with sneaky skills and patience it could be done.

I just might try this with my GMQ speedo... but for the time being I'll just throw the old bulbs back in and get it back on the road.

Oh and I broke my odometer when I took it out... it was bound to happen. I knew I'd have to buy those gears sooner or later. Nothing's ever simple.

[BuffaloRider]

I think red would look better than blue or green in your car still. I can't seem to find it but I'm pretty sure I've seen someone with red LEDs in the cluster, although it may have been on an 89- cluster.

You get it.

And I thought I had seen red LEDs in one of these clusters before too, that's why I didn't even consider that it wouldn't be possible... I'm in denial.

[BuffaloRider]

BOOYAH! It can be done!

I took apart my GMQ cluster and pulled out the speedo, then disconnected the shift indicator. With a pocket knife and goo gone I slowly peeled the face of the speedometer off. I pulled the speedo needle off in the process and I have no idea how to get it back to where it needs to be, unless it just resets itself or something. I guess you could cut around the speedometer needle to get the face off... idk.

Anyway, underneath the face there were these blue rectangular thingies around the odometer and tripometer, out with those.


Then I started with the shift indicator face. There it is held up to the light with a little scratch on the D


Then I sanded it down with some 400 grit and voila


After that I did the entire backside of the speedometer face, check it



And there it is with power to it and red LED's in the back! YES!


some spots are a little brighter than others, I don't know if that is from me sanding too much in some areas or if it's just how the light is collecting in the back without the filters. I think it could use something to brighten up the needle so it sticks out a little more. I didn't do the temperature and fuel gauges because this is just the trial. I don't know yet if I'll do this to my 0-140 cluster though... we'll see tomorrow... I definitely stayed up too late tonight.

[VicCrownVic]

Nice job!
If it was me I would have tried to find a way to do it too.

My cluster does have some areas that are brighter too with the blue LEDs, although it doesn't seem to show up in the pics I have maybe a better quality camera would show the difference.

Now for your clock you might be able to take it apart and put a red light filter in there if the numbers don't light up green with out the stock filter.
If you look at this Ebay ad: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1990-Mercury...5bcb38&vxp=mtr it looks like you could take it apart and replace the filter with a red one if the numbers light up white.

You could maybe use something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/GAM-Color-25...item257e47aef7

And since that is 20"x24" you could stick a piece of it on the back of the cluster face.

[BuffaloRider]

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!

[sly]

wow. that's a lot of crap to go through to get those filters out. Much easier with my 88 (remove loosely fitted blue film). I haven't done the LED thing yet because I haven't had enough time between fixing functional things to get lazy enough and my wallet fat enough to do something like this. But me likes lots.

+1 red