I have heard that there is a way to print a new faceplate for the Fiero gauges that will make them white. Is this true?

If so, does anyone know where to get a pic of the white face to print out?

On my site. http://www.fieroshop.com.au

------------------

Wow, thats way more than I expected. Thanks

+ to ya since I guess I hadn't already.

Rick

If ya want to spend money on some premade pieces go to www.rpmoverlays.com or look for auctions on eBay by whitegaugeguy.

------------------
John DuRette
***Custom 85 under construction, 87 Coupe in the driveway. The fun never ends!***

And there's always www.speedhut.com for EL gauges!

------------------

Looking for Fiero posters?

Ok, I'm looking at the gauge plates that AusFiero has on his site, and would like to make and install the yellow with black lettering.
But If I am correct, the lighting would still be orange correct?

I would need to repaint the orange that is supposedly on the back of the gauges to another color I think, because having yellow gauges with an orange light would make it kinda hard to see.

Any suggestions on what color would be best behind yellow?

EDIT: Ok bear with me. Just had a thought.
If the white face gauges are all lit up and the lettering is black, then would the yellow face gauges do the same thing?
If this is so, it would probably be best to paint the orange a bright yellow instead to make the yellow brighter. Or at the least, a bright white reflective color to brighten the yellow. Am I on the right track? Or am I way off?

[This message has been edited by slickrick2000 (edited 02-21-2005).]

quote Originally posted by slickrick2000: EDIT: Ok bear with me. Just had a thought. If the white face gauges are all lit up and the lettering is black, then would the yellow face gauges do the same thing? If this is so, it would probably be best to paint the orange a bright yellow instead to make the yellow brighter. Or at the least, a bright white reflective color to brighten the yellow. Am I on the right track? Or am I way off?

I would recommend either yellow or white paint... either should work fairly well - although the white might be "brighter" when lit.

quote Originally posted by USFiero: If ya want to spend money on some premade pieces go to www.rpmoverlays.com or look for auctions on eBay by whitegaugeguy.

I went to this guy's website to check out his overlays and he has a note there stating that the 120 MPH speedo version is harder to read at night. Anyone have these and how hard is it to read the guages at night?

hey minngreen, do you have the EL guages? if so can i pick your brain for a minute about installing em? i should have my set here in a day or two and just wanna be sure im real clear on the install

cya

Here are mine up to this point. Haven't glued the new auge plates down yet. Gonna wait till I make sure it lights up OK at night.

Tell me what ya think.

You don't have to glue them. I used two sided carpet tape to hold mine in place. Works great, and I can remove them at any time if I get bored with it. So far so good, the Speedhut gauges are great.

Bondo.

quote Originally posted by Exodus5: I went to this guy's website to check out his overlays and he has a note there stating that the 120 MPH speedo version is harder to read at night. Anyone have these and how hard is it to read the guages at night?

That's referring to the backlit gauges. Most Fieros aren't backlit and if yours are, I'd find a set that isn't. They are pretty cheap. I paid $10 for the sticker set from whitegaugeguy on eBay and it came woth gauges for ALL the Fiero dash styles and the graphics are close enough to be interchangeable. I converted my 85 MPH speedo to a 120 MPH. I don't have PIP but I did write an article for myself to keep track of the conversion (word.doc). If you want a copy of it e-mailed to you, PM me your email address.

[This message has been edited by USFiero (edited 02-22-2005).]

quote Originally posted by USFiero: That's referring to the backlit gauges. Most Fieros aren't backlit and if yours are, I'd find a set that isn't. They are pretty cheap. I paid $10 for the set from whitegaugeguy on eBay and it came woth gauges for ALL the Fiero dash styles and the graphics are close enough to be interchangeable. I converted my 85 MPH speedo to a 120 MPH. I don't have PIP but I did write an article for myself to keep track of the conversion (word.doc). If you want a copy of it e-mailed to you, PM me your email address.

if by most you mean since there were more 84's built then yes
(im actually not sure baout the 85s either)
but most of the years are backlit.

I haven't tried Aus's faces - but I had made my own style by two different methods - one I printed on clear overhead plastic sheets and laminated them together with superglue with a single sheet of bright wite paper as a backer to make the numbers show up as white on the black background..
the other I printed on velum which turned out great..

I wanted mine black face to look stock but change the numbers because I converted it to a 150 MPH speedo from an 85 - both setups were backlit and worked great

I'm going to leave off the kph when I do my next set

[This message has been edited by Kohburn (edited 02-22-2005).]

I did a set of Aus's face plates and I was very happy with them, however I never figured out how to attach the temp and gas overlay since the factory is made the way it is. Anyone care to enlighten me? I'll drop you a +

On mine I printed the gauges on velum as well. After placing them into the cluster and shining a flashlight through the hole the bulbis in, I could see too much throught eh gauge itself. So I placed some white self adhesive on the back. After that I covered the face with clear adhesive laminate to ive it a little shine.

I'm extremely happy with how it looks in the daylight, but haven't been able to see how they look at night yet.

My goal is to have the yellow glow. Hopefully it will work. I still need to paint the inside of the gauge cluster white. I'll do that today if I can and see how it looks tonight.

Kohburn, when you made your 150 gauge, how did you adjust your speedo so that it read corectly?

EDIT: Achawkins, when I went to attach the gas and temp gauge, I just made it the same shape as the orig, and folded it in the same place. I plan on centering up the needle holes and the bottom where it's folded. The test fit is perfect, so all I have to do is just spray the adhesive on it and place it on.

Also, as far as using double sided tape. I don't want to add anything behind the gauge face that might diminish the lighting from shining through the yellow part of the gauges, so I'm using spray adhesive.

[This message has been edited by slickrick2000 (edited 02-22-2005).]

quote Originally posted by slickrick2000: On mine I printed the gauges on velum as well. After placing them into the cluster and shining a flashlight through the hole the bulbis in, I could see too much throught eh gauge itself. So I placed some white self adhesive on the back. After that I covered the face with clear adhesive laminate to ive it a little shine. I'm extremely happy with how it looks in the daylight, but haven't been able to see how they look at night yet. My goal is to have the yellow glow. Hopefully it will work. I still need to paint the inside of the gauge cluster white. I'll do that today if I can and see how it looks tonight. Kohburn, when you made your 150 gauge, how did you adjust your speedo so that it read corectly?

I replaced the crystal in the 85 speedo with one of these

I used multiple layers to make the black stay dark when backlit.
if you want a color to light up you can look into the EL film as a backer and not worry about the backlighting lightbulbs.

I'm thinking about pulling a littl e more work into my next set to add some nifty features using the EL material

I'll have to check into the EL film. Not sure what that is. Thanks for the tip though.

............................Off to google to find out about EL film and where to get some.

here is one good source http://www.beingseen.com/sheets.html

quote Originally posted by Weponhead: hey minngreen, do you have the EL guages? if so can i pick your brain for a minute about installing em? i should have my set here in a day or two and just wanna be sure im real clear on the install

Sorry, although I provided them with some files to get the process moving along - I never actually set aside the money to get a set! I'm hoping to this summer

Hummm...very interesting.

So the EL sheet would have to be hooked up to 12v, but would illuminate the whole gauge face. Sounds like it may be what I want it to end up like.

I think I'll see how well they look tonight before getting any of that stuff, althoughI don't feel real confident that I will like it all that much. I am a perfectionist if ya didn't know....lol

Thanks for the heads up on that EL sheet.

quote Originally posted by MinnGreenGT: Just a heads-up... the stuff is expensive. Joe Torma & I tried to create & build our own guages - but we figured that we'd have had to sell them for at leaast $250-$300 to keep up with the cost of making them by hand (it was cheaper for me to just send my files to SpeedHut and let them do it - they're set up for production & they have the experience). Just some thoughts from someone who has done what you're thinking of (and has some pretty extensive resources when it came to printable materials and optically clear laminates). You can read about our tests here: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Archive-000002/HTML/20020825-1-015585.html and here: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Archive-000002/HTML/20021104-1-015796.html

yeah not cheap - I don't like the white face indiglo look personally - and speedhut seems to only do single color displays

but since MY next display may be very custom I may set it up to use LED's instead - they are dirt cheap

Wow, yeah I just saw how much they want for a sheet of that stuff. I could only find the kits for sale, not just a sheet of it. But I think if what I have so far isn't gonna work to my expectations, then I might end up forking out the money. I really hate spending that much on an experiment, but it sure seems like it would work well for what I want.

For those of you curious and adventurous enough to attempt your own speedometer modification, here is the formula to convert the dial range:
534/Max Speed (MPH)=Crystal Frequency (approximately) in MHz

quote Originally posted by USFiero: For those of you curious and adventurous enough to attempt your own speedometer modification, here is the formula to convert the dial range: 534/Max Speed (MPH)=Crystal Frequency (approximately) in MHz

I don't think thats right since that'd make my 150 mph speedo be a max of 73 - but the crystal I used to convert the 85mph speedo to 150mph speedo was accurate to about 1mph when paced at 80mph

I haven't converted a 120mph speedo so it may be accurate for that speedometer

[This message has been edited by Kohburn (edited 02-22-2005).]

how hard are whitegaugeguys thingys to stick on right? And do the orange lights still show through? If not.....how am I gonna see how fast im going at night? :-D

the way I do mine they are still functioning backlit guages and you can change the backlighting color by just puting a layer on the very back of whatever color you want to shine through at night - oh yeah and spray the inside of the plastic housing with chrome paint to replace the orange..

Well after being very disapointed in how my gauges lit up at night,lots of shadows and not an even lighting behind the gauges, I did a quick search on ebay and found these.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3875771126&ssPageName=STRK:M EWA:IT

They are even the color I want. Not bad for $15.00. Hopefully this will get them up to my standard of how I want them to look.

After I get em, I'll probably be asking you guys about hooking power to them. I.E. can I run power to them all in a series, or do I have to run power to them all separately?

Thanks Kohburn for the idea of using the EL sheets.
Rick

[This message has been edited by slickrick2000 (edited 02-25-2005).]

Does this mean you are going to have to use an AC converter?
here ya go for white gauges for those who read this far. The font is pretty much all the same on the actual product: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7956370308&cate gory=43952

[This message has been edited by USFiero (edited 02-27-2005).]

Ok I finally got my EL sheets today that I bought on Ebay. See the link 2 posts up.

Now I need to try and figure out how to power them up.

They are supposed to be able to be lit up by 110VAC, which I suppose is straight 110 from a standard outlet.
Now the question for the electrical experts is how do I convert 12volt from my car to work with these?

USFiero suggests an AC Converter. would that work with these?

Once I get these powered up and make sure they work, I am going to cut a hole in one and see if it damages it. I got 10 for 15 buck, so not too big of a loss if I screw one up.

Help me out guys. I'd love to get these in my dash soon.

why oh why must everything be in MPH. I'd love a set of gauges that look comptely stock, and just light up blue instead of red

quote Originally posted by slickrick2000: They are supposed to be able to be lit up by 110VAC, which I suppose is straight 110 from a standard outlet. Now the question for the electrical experts is how do I convert 12volt from my car to work with these? .

I don't think you want to do that.

EL works off of a tiny amount of amps, but high frequency AC volts (vary the frequency you vary the color on some). It'll give you quite a zap(yes I know from experience). So you need to convert 3,9,12VDC or 110VAC to (guessing)100VAC @ 1000+Hz

Contact Ed from Being Seen. That's where I got all of may EL material. ask him for the grey inverter. There are black and grey(last I inquired). The grey ones are more powerful. I do have several of both laying around as well as lots of sheets. $800 in experimental stuff. I could not get a durable electrical connection out of the material, and I lacked dies and such to knock out the holes....and realized I could not sell them.

[This message has been edited by Joe Torma (edited 03-10-2005).]

quote Originally posted by Joe Torma: I do have several of both laying around as well as lots of sheets. $800 in experimental stuff. I could not get a durable electrical connection out of the material, and I lacked dies and such to knock out the holes....and realized I could not sell them.

If you're ever bored or would be willing to take the time, I'd still love a set with my checkered gauge faces (seriously)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7956370308&cate gory=43952

Does some one have this overlays in his car !.
Please post me how satisfied your are .

Thank you !

P.S. what about shadows and soo one ?!.