No button for new topic in guide section (?) so putting this here and Moderator can move it :P

Sick of those green dials glowing back at you at night? want white ones? or maybe another colour if you want to colour them in yourself? Well I wanted to have white ones but keep the black dial faces, and after seeing a couple of other people doing similarly, thought I'd throw up a quick how to!

Tools needed:

- Philips/crosshead screw driver (smallish)
- Sandpaper (fine'ish, I used 200 grit)
- Fork or other prying tool
- Hot beverage of choice and a couple of hours

So, to start it helps to know how the dials are printed in the first place. It's basically layers of printing on either side of a clear plastic template:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/oEymeU4.jpg[/img]

So we want to work on the back and remove the Speckles and Green layers.

Removing the dials themselves involves:

- Taking the dash out, 10-15 mins, 4 screws and a couple of clips (once you know how)
- Removing the cluster, another 5 mins, 4 screws and unclip the 3 connector blocks on the rear.
- Unclip the clear plastic cover and the black surround, 2 mins if you're lazy, 7 clips a-piece

Simple so far.

Now a slightly tricky part. Make a note of where your petrol gauge is pointing as you have to remove all 4 needles. You can get proper tools for it or use a clean fork. Rest the cluster on a towel or something to protect the circuit & bulbs on the back, then [b][color=#FF0000]CAREFULLY[/color][/b], as not to scratch your dials, put your implement of choice under the needle centre, and wiggle them off. They can be a bit stiff so be patient. Now you can remove dials proper by removing the two small screws on each. I found two of the 6 screws were a little longer, these are from the speedometer. The side panels for the warning lights wont need changing so can stay on.

Place the dial face down on the edge of a table or something raised so the stop pin doesn't get bent, again having something soft to protect the face is a good idea.

Start sanding gently:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/qlvyXEW.jpg[/img]

After an hour or so you should have something like this:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/X85begR.jpg[/img]

Now I left most of the green and speckles on, well, because. Others have removed it fully but I was worried about light bleed. No idea how much difference it would actually make, probably not much.

Afterwards you should have this from the front:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/ep9lY4p.jpg[/img]

Looks exactly the same as before, but hold it up to the window and magic happens!!!!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/eDinSag.jpg[/img]

no more green numbers You can see where the two dots and the number 4 at the bottom still have the green tint.

This is them in dash at night:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/95Xy0E7.jpg[/img]

As you can see there's a little hot-spotting of light but nothing major, more a slight shadow top and bottom of the speedo.

I coloured in the E line for the fuel, H line for temp and the 70 mph mark in red using an OHP pen front and rear (so it shows in daytime as red but doesn't go pink at night!). Tbh this is a little dark and next time I'll use orange on the front and red on the rear, that worked on a little test bit I tried under the black cluster cover panel. I did try a blue OHP pen on the C line for the temp, but this is waaaaaay too dark and doesn't really let light through. Need a much lighter blue for that!

Also left the km/h dial green as an idea, but may in redo that to white too.

I guess if you wanted you could recolour the back with either a translucent vinyl or paint so it shines a different colour, or use those caps that go over the bulbs like the indicator ones... except not green else there'd be no point doing this

Now I would say reassembly is simply the reverse, but take care locating the needle properly. Try to get them back in the same position you removed them. The fuel and temp gauges have a groove inside that locates over a small pin on the main unit. I had to take it for a spin before putting the surround and cover back on just to make sure the needles are correct, that way you can tweak them should you have too. Speedo seems fine as did fuel, but temp and rev needed a little tweaking. I let the car idle for a while until warm, then put revs to 750 (which I knew it was before hand at idle) and temp gauge in the middle!. You could also top your tank right up and set the fuel gauge then. Speedo seemed to sort it self out, but make sure before sailing past the plod!

In all it took me about 2 hours of sanding and another hour or so pulling everything apart and putting it back together.

Jon

nice work.