Who has painted their gauge cluster needles?

[kazzaz]

Night Wolf and evilnickwong

can you plz show us the gague at daylight but with the whole dashboard a wider look i mean :)

[91 318is]

That Toyota read actually came out pretty good, when I do mine, that's probably what I'll get.

I've been thinking about painting my needles too, but I would like to get the trim rings before I do it. Where is everyone getting the trim rings from?

Sorry to hijack.

[catchuk]

the white doesnt look that bad but Id paint the needles and put on some rings

[Dirtbleed]

Go Red on the needles? These white faced gauges came with the car. Kinda cheesey, but I'll live with it.

[evilnickwong]

Here's mine. CF backing + matt aluminum rings from ebay. Needles colored in with a red sharpie. Lights up just the same at night as before, but admittedly on overcast/cloudy days, they're tougher to see if you don't turn the lights on.

[Jand3rson]

Mine still show up just fine in the dark:

[I got it, yes!!]

Just did mine and I have to say I like it. Got out the paint and had some fun with the instrument cluster. Also the 7K tach is for the upcoming project.:)

[Night Wolf]

Yeah.... how did you keep the rings in? Were the small ones not fitting in and the big ones not cliping on? Are they flush against the face (which in turn makes the gauges not flush?)

[guibo09]

@gearhead, which ebay rings did you get? and how was the fit?

[gearheadE30]

Here are some pics of mine fwiw.

[Jamster]

both look great, partal to the look of the red, lol.

[der affe]

you need an analouge clock now to go with your new cluster. you can paint the pointers red too.


BTW if you get a little red in the center of the needles, just take a sharpie and reblack them.

[Mohammed_A]

i did mine in a bright orange, here in South Africa we have the 333i that comes standard in this colour.no issues at night either

[tecks2k]

Looks good bro, nice job!

[Night Wolf]

Some pics so far...

Too much plain black and white, wait thats an 80's Michael song...the 80's were great for lots of things... Safety Dance, KITT, me, E30's etc.... but blah gauge clusters? Nah... time to kick it into the.....2009's....yeah...



Crude, yes. Works, yes.



I decided to go touch-up paint route. I figure if I am going to spend $7 on the darn thing, may as well be touch up paint that I can use on the car, so I looked at the selection from Advance Auto, and found a color that (I thought) matched - Toyota Super Red II. As soon as I got home and opened it, it was way too brighter and red-er. red for the car... I was a little disapointed, but then when I got to thinking about it, I bet it would be really nice on the gauges... so I went for it. This is after 1 coat, they got a total of 3.









Playing with the overlay (still needs work) and trim rings (still needs work)





So I took the cluster out, no plastic cover or anything, and it wasn't screwed together so I had to hold it with my hand... I had a hard time getting good pics as I had a longer shutter speed and was having a hard time trying to hold the cluster up, and the camera still, as such, I was unable to get a picture of the needles at a vertical position.



Overall I am *very* happy with the paint, I am excited to see them dance around now. I thought about leaving the econogauge white, but all the others would be red, so I wanted it to match, plus I think it'll look cool. The carbon fiber overlay is being a real pain tho trying to trim it correctly, and I am gonna have to spend some time with the trim rings to see how to get them to fit.