Just curious. I'm getting tired of seeing amber lights on everything so..how can I go about changing these without overlays. I'm guessing they are lit with a clear bulb shining into an amber kinda film, right? So any suggestions here? The blue bulb replacements lose their color so I'm guessing sanding off the amber film and then replacing it with a sort of blue overlay, but I'm not too sure where to find it. K, enough rambling, you guys get the point of what I wanna do

You are pretty close. I'm not sure on the aux. gauges above the radio but I'm sure they are the same. When you pull apart the dash, there are a bunch of those little little bulds like what are used on the side marker lights. There is a thin sheet metal cover that goes over the entire thing that is flourescent orange on the back and black on the front. My guess is you just sand that orange off or just paint over the top of it whatever color you want. Then do the same for the other gauge cluster. I've never done it myself but it would work in theory. Hope that helps.

-Tim

well now i know im in the right direction at least, lol..now i have to figure out what that material is called so i can recover it and get some blue gauges..if not, ill just rip the bulbs out and solder in blue led's if i gotta

YOu will need very bright bulbs to pul this off. A friend of mine did this and the dash was not very bright.

im confused..did he paint the actual backing of the gauges green? i wanted the lights to change, not the black housing..maybe i just read/looked at it wrong

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It depends on whether you have the sidelit gauges or the backlit gauges... sidelit you change by painting the orange piece a different flourescent color (though keep in mind some of the text on the gauges is orange, so it may not show up with other colors of light!). Backlit you have to make new faces.. this isn't too hard to do, see here:
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/20050119-2-054138.html

EDIT: Judging by the pic in your sig you have the backlit gauges. The guy that painted the backside of the black piece green (it is normally orange) has the sidelit/frontlit gauges that are lit by reflecting light off of that orange piece onto the front of the gauges. That wont work for you. The backlit gauge cluster still has the piece with the backside painted orange, but there are foam inserts that block out light from the edges, so it shouldn't be lighting the gauges.

[This message has been edited by Steven Snyder (edited 07-24-2005).]

yes, i have backlit gauges. I want to keep the way they look and have the numbers glow a diff color when on
http://users.tc3net.com/prielipp/misc/glowygauges.jpg <--sorry for bad example, gotta get off net and run to shop soon
sorry, I'm slow with car stuff sometimes, but why do I need new faceplates? I can't simply modify the old ones somehow?

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I've done it with Mitsubish gauges, but I can't remember what the back of the Fiero gauges look like.. Pretty sure they're the same though.. The main plastic of the gauge face is clear / translucent, and the back is printed with an orange dye / ink. I carefully sanded through the orange coating until I got to the clear, at that point white light bulbs would make the numbers white. Blue lights *should* make them blue, or better would be normal white lights, but use a blue "cellophane" or thin plastic film where the orange was. But one problem is, also printed on the back of the gauges is a bit of a "shadow". It's needed because some spots of the gauge get more light than others, so with it all sanded off, there will be bright spots here and there. You'd have to experiment with some kind of darkening film, or spray, over the bright spots to make it even. What I did was to use a cheap set of those blue electroluminescent panels (the ones that are all blue with dark letters and blind you at night!), and I sanded all the lettering off of those to make them all blue, then placed them behind the gauge faces. That way I have stock looking gauges by day, but bright blue letters at night. One other thing to consider, is the needles are painted orange also, so you'll need to scrape / sand those and experiment with colored lights or LED's to get those to look good. I haven't gotten that far yet unfortunately, too many other projects. Another option would be to find a cheap (yeah, right!) instrument panel from a late model Accord / Civic / Volkswagen / etc and figure out how they get thiers to be SUPER bright using LED's. I'd like to, but they go for insane $$ even on eBay. I love how they light up, so bright and clear even in daylight. That's my $.02!

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Bob Williams
Multi-colored '86 Mutt, a work in progress! (3800SC running great! Fixed the bent roof, now I need an intercooler! Yeehaa!)

I guess it would depend which lighting system you have, backlit or side-but wonder if you paint the back side of the brushed alum looking bezel with white or other reflective paint, would that reflect light back onto the gages and needles? I have mine off right now and noticed there is a lot of white light that seems to just be directed right into the decorative cover. Haven't tried it myself, but may next week. It might help with the brightness issue. I'm talking about painting the back side of this piece:

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 07-25-2005).]