Here come the flames...My gauge cluster

[Eternal Rider]

its awesome i like it !!!

me dont like the orange color of original bmw gauges... when i'm tired i dont see well, and bright blue is better ( Volks blue is too dark )

how much money did you invest to do this ? with the gauges !

thx !

[mikeedler]

I like it. I also dont understand why everyone is saying the blue is ricer??? VW and Audi are using blue. definately different, and I would do it if I had a bunch of extra money laying around. but like james said, no way in my M though.

[Jordan]

You should paint all the silver rings around the guages black while you are at it.

[BMW BMXER]

I like it, I would have choose a slightly smaller tach and maybe large speedo, but it looks good overall.

[Jand3rson]

When I painted the center section of my M-Tech II wheel, I used SEM ColorCoat. It's made specifically for vinyl, plastics, cloth and carpet. I painted the wheel center and a knee bolster that I sold to Jim Warren. The bolster came out looking brand new, and my M-Tech II looks the same.

[Digitalwave]

I've used the Duplicolor stuff too, its not as good as the VHT but its still really good.

[autoxguy305]

I used Dupli-Color's Vinyl & Fabric coating. P#hvp104 Gloss Black. You have to make sure to apply it in light coating on parts like headliners, otherwise it looks really shiny and not good.

[Digitalwave]

Now that I think about it, when we painted my friend dash, the smell didn't linger either. Did you use the VHT vinyl/plastic dye? It really did come out very well.

[autoxguy305]

You can get away without removing the rear glass, just mask carefully. As far as the smell, i left the windows a 1/4 inch down over night, and after a nice 20 minute drive with all the windows open the smell was completely gone. This paint dries REALLY fast.

[Digitalwave]

I reckon I am going to paint my headliner, but if I were to remove the rear glass I'd probably just replace the headliner. I would remove the obvious and mask as best as I could and then just paint it.

How bad is the smell inside the car now?

[autoxguy305]

Thanks for the comments. :up: The extra hole was for a shift light, but the speedo ended up being bigger than i thought it would be. So i'm going to fill the hole with a plug, epoxy it in, and make a new hole. The headliner was painted, i had to remove just about everything from the car to do it correctly. Seats, rear glass, all the seals, ect were removed, and I masked off everything.

Next up, the seats!

[Digitalwave]

Whats the extra hole above the speedometer for?

And did you paint the headliner? It looks good.

[Jand3rson]

That actually does look pretty good in the daylight.

I like the headliner.

[autoxguy305]

Well i have the final gauge wired and installed. Everything has to be removed so i can finish the panel and paint it, but its working for now.






And some interior updates.

[autoxguy305]

I painted the panel with some cheap 99 cent paint to enhance the defects in it. i couldn't see them before, and you need to see them to fix them. I plan to use an interior paint/dye to paint it when done. I've used the paint before and the results have been very good.

The speedo will be in and wired up tomorrow.