Well part of my interior process has been my gauges, I turned them red tonight, got my chrome gauge rings on and painted the plate around the gauges silver to match the color of the car. I have also painted some of the other pieces around the car such as the switch plates and the entire center console. All I have left now is to upgrade the seats, planning on fitting in some G35 seats or maybe having some custom ones done. I will have more interior shots tomorrow.

So here are the red Gauges

any shots of the process involved?

of how to change them to red?

yes.

Lookin good.

very impressive. I also would love to see a write-up, as it looks very even light, etc.

everything else inside my car is red, would love to do it to the gauges!

Its actually very very easy...

It takes about 15 minutes....

go here: http://autolumination.com/74.htm

order the ones that are $4.99 you need 4 of them.
pick your color, I choose red and there are no hot spots it is all even across the face and it looks gorgous at night
If you order blue or white there tends to be an issue with how the light spreads evenly across.

So once you have them
1. Lower the steering wheel
2. Unscrew the screws in the shroud around the gauges
3. Pull shroud out, it is a tight fit but you can remove it without have to remove the steering wheel cover
4. Unscrew the 3 screws holding the gauges in (One on top middle, two on the bottom sides)
5. Pull the gauges out, again a tight fit but you can pull out without removing the steering wheel cover
6. Flip it upside down and put on top of dash
7. There are black round things that you can twist out (4 of them each one located about where each gauge would be)
8. when you have them out these bulbs are a bit of a PIA to get out, DO NOT I repeat DO NOT use your teeth to remove the bulbs, they do shatter, I did not try this, put I had two out of the bulbs shatter on me when using plyers to remove them. When they do shatter, don't worry its really easy to then just yank them out using the filament to pull them out.
9. Once they are all in try them out before you put your gauges completely back in. *Hint: Dimmer switch needs to be plugged in as well. Once you know they work put everything back together and enjoy.

NOTE: If they don't light at first try, don't fret, the polarity maybe wrong just reverse the LED bulb around. I got 3 out of 4 right on first try.

kinda Audish, I prefer white digits with red needles

I totally agree everything is being made red right now, I have 15,000mcd red LEDs going in and I can't wait. I have my doors, shift bezel, map light, dome light, mirror light, center console light all done, just the window switches and auto climate control to finish got to get my soldering iron out. So when I do those LED conversions, I will take pictures and do a full write up on it.

that looks great, are you going to attempt changing any of the other interior backlights to match (stereo, climate control, etc)?

Nice work!

Very nice. GJ on choosing the right bulbs!

i like them. very clean and cool looking. you think you can do that for a 03?

I would not know but some people have done this mod with an 02-03 using white LEDS and the lights turned blue, so I don't think red is a go for them

Oh I am turning the turn signal indicators red as well, in the future

i like it! however, is there any light for the miles screen?

ah....er....um...yes, car wasn't on it was just lights on.

Awesome! Good job! Seems fairly simple and I might give it a try....maybe blue with red needles.....not sure yet.

I like.

My 01 could sure use new bulbs...The autolumination site you linked....Is the bulb the first one listed on the page the "tripower 3 led bulb??? I am guessing it is but you stated they were 4.99 and they are listing them for 3.99... I just want to get the right bulbs before ordering four of these....I am also going to order some 194's for my clear sidemarkers because I am sick of the white light the polargs give off I have in there now...I will get the yellow led's for the front and the red for the back...Thanks....Paul

if you go down the page a little further until you see "#24 Only(T6-1/2, T2-1/4) bulbs are 3/4" (17mm) x 5/16 (6.5mm)" diameter" and those are your bulbs you need

Thanks for the replay silmax...I appreciate your response and the gauges look great....Keep up the good work with the max...I'm ordering mine tomorrow with a couple extra so I have some spares..Not sure how long they will last..

Very nice! Is the light for the needles the same type?

Nice job looks really Good, Cant wait to see pictures of the interior lights, then you can badge it limtied, or special edition

I'd be curious to see the backlight and needles with two different colors.

you can't... unless you manualy take the cluster apart and solder the LED's in.

There are 4 bulbs
1- top left of the spedo(lights speedo and gas)
1- top right of the tach(lights tach and temp)
1- for odo
1- trip cpu

At least that is how it is on the 02-03 6MT

I tried it with mine and got Blue(Tri-power LED's) the light was not bright enough so after 6 months just bought the conventional #24 colored bulbs in Green to match my Bose headunit. I like it... better and more even light distribution

Okay, gotcha.

to do something like that I would have to pull the faces out and sand the bottom of the needles and that all is just way to risky in my book, irish knows this. but it is possible to do such a setup

so did a write up on how to do the needles with a seperate LED.

man i wish you could do this to SE gauges w/o havin to deal with that danged blue plastic thing. looks nice man.

well when i pulled the bulbs out of mine, I shined a flash light through it and my gauges turned blue, which kind of disappointed me and made me worry that i was going to have either brown or purple gauges but as you can see the final result is actually what i put in. so I am at a lose here as to how its working with red.

so, I got mine in today and fitted them. The odd thing is, i only have the following lights behind the cluster:

3 brown holders at the top (signals and hi-beam)

black holder top right and top left (gauge lighting)

black holder for odometer lighting.

(i.e. only two gauge lights).

needless to say, the lighting isn't that great, and there are hotspots where the bulbs are....



IIRC I tried this a couple years ago with similar results. I wonder if the AT '00 maxima has more ligghts for somereason (to light the center shift indicator area?)

grr...

Looks very good.

it looks like the Mazda 6 speedo at night.

It looks like your car is possessed...all red and hellish...but it looks great

From the uneven distribution of the stock lights, I would say there are only three bulbs for the manuals.

Side note: does any one have pics of the cluster apart? I am about to try a technique to change my color with led's but have more coverage area.

there goes that "i'm not doing nothing else to this car after getting the Wilwoods" statement

You guys with the SE's might want to try a trick us Spec-V guys have. Our 04+ gauges have an orange film on the backside of the gauge faces that we sand off to allow us to get better light and other colors through.

Pretty soon I'll be getting in a ton of LEDs to make some custom gauge lights for Zero2sixtyZ and myself. I guess I can try it then...

***can't stop starring at alicious' avatar

5 minute mods don't count, lol.....

I've already undone it...