It threatened rain here all day but never did. It's forecasted for tonight and tomorrow and Monday, but I guess it just hasn't gotten this far east yet.
I spent the day cleaning up car parts for one of my project cars. I haven't even seen a jackrabbit in over 10 years, but then I haven't been looking for one either.

 

I got up at noon, went to a BBQ, then to a wedding, then to a b-day party. Now I'm a day behind in getting my truck put together. Doesn't look like I'll be dropping the motor in tomorrow.

 

It's been raining here in Central Florida non stop since the 15th.Ironically,it started the day after I broke up with my girlfriend,and it's still raining.lol.But let's all remember the soldiers overseas,the previous war veterans,and those who never made it home.God bless America.


To put the thread kinda back on topic,i'm still loving my white gauges.Thanks to Sycostang for the detailed thread.Without his tips,it probably wouldn't of come out as well.

 

wow that looks great! i might consider doing that in mine to make the gauges easier to see at night too...i also saw where somebody took the little shades off the lightbulbs in the dash to make them shine brighter to improve gauge visibility too...tried that?

 

wow that looks great! i might consider doing that in mine to make the gauges easier to see at night too...i also saw where somebody took the little shades off the lightbulbs in the dash to make them shine brighter to improve gauge visibility too...tried that?

 

On my F100,all the blue shades had cracked and disintegrated before I even got it from old age.it does improve visibilty,because with the blue filters,the light turns green.From Factory,the gauges are supposed to look like this...




But,none of our gauges look like that after 20 years.Another thing to do to make it a little brighter,is to paint the backing of the cluster that all the gauges bolt to silver.That way the light can reflect off the silver.Here's what mine looked like at night..They're alot better than they were.I have an old pic somewhere of when I first got the truck,and you can barely even see the lights in it.



There's really nothing you can do about the big black spot on the speedometer that i'm aware of.This picture isn't the best either.You can read all the numbers at night in person.

 

Hey, I think it looks great. I may end up doing the same thing
thanks for the Idea

 

There's really nothing you can do about the big black spot on the speedometer that i'm aware of.This picture isn't the best either.You can read all the numbers at night in person.[/quote]





Is it at all possible for you to hook up LED lights? it would give it a brighter white color, and you may even be able to position them to get rid of the black spot

 

I don't think they're dimmable.

 

Damn, that's true, Forgot about that haha.
My uncle had an old F150, he did something very similar, Ill ask him what he did, how he did it, and how much it cost him and get back to the forum (might take a few days)

 

The only real thing I know to do to eliminate the black spot is to use a fluorescent paint for the numbers.

 

I have blue LED's in mine with painted red needles and hate them.

It looks good during the day but at night you can barely read anything. The blue light turns the needles to almost black for some reason.

I haven't tried taking the diffusers off yet, but I'm not so sure it's going to help.

White LED's might make a difference but I haven't tried them yet either. I also put the blue LED's in the top row and now my brake light is a shade of purple due to the red lense and my turn signal indicators flash a really cool shade of blue even with the green lenses.

I'm going to go back to stock 194's but have not had a chance to take the cluster out yet.

On another note, I found a truck in the yard with RED diffusers inside the cluster while removing a tach last year. I'm not sure where they came from (OEM or Aftermarket) and have not had a chance to see what they look like either.

I tried recently to paint mine a nice shade of silver and they were looking great right till the very last coat. I guess the paint wasn't mixed well enough and it shot out a thick layer of metal flake and ruined the gages. I was trying to get the cluster to match the silver XLS bezels that I acquired.

Maybe I'll give them a shot later this afternoon after I take my daughter back to her mother.

 

i used silver on mine, i tried white but the paint i used was too thick and you couldnt see all the grid lines on the gauges...



sharpie for the numbers, and flourescent orange for the needles

i also tried to use a red sharpie on the 4k rpm mark and past, but it didnt show up right...i think i could use red paint and do it though.

 

Yeah your's is what made me try silver to match the aluminum XLS trim panels but the paint came out too thick and ruined my first attempt on the last coat. You can hardly see the grid any more because of the goop that came out of the can.

I'm going to try it on another cluster but I'm going to pop the can, thin it out with some lacquer thinner and use an air brush this time.

 

That's a great idea. I read where a guy put that foil tape on the cluster backing to help reflect the light back onto the bezel as much as possible. It's stuff like this: foil tape.