changing instrument cluster and dash lights.... custom colors.

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xtantaudio

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Hello all,

I have been viewing this forum for almost 7 months now, ever since I purchased my 2001 Lincoln LS V8... to date my nicest and most luxurious vehicle I have owned.... only 1 problem...

The GREEN dash lights suck.... there everywhere !!! window switches... instrument cluster, heater controlls.... just ugly !!!

I have changeed all my instrument cluster lights to BLUE and it looks great... I have changed everything to blue, except for the heater controls... waiting on the led bulbs... I have changed the radio controls and the cruise controls on the steering wheel to blue.... I am even making a mold of the gear selector in the center console so I can change that too...

My question is.... is anyone interested in doing this to there car?

If I have enough people interested, I will make more molds of the gear selector, and get together instructions and get the bulbs together... either way... I would just make a kit and sell it to the members of the forum if u guys are interested....

Hit me up and let me know.... pics will be up here in the next few days... if I have enough requests....
 
Hell yeah man! Get those pics up! I was always wanting a blue or just a clean white look instead of the green. So are all of these just regular bulbs or LEDs? I thought a lot of the gauge cluster and small buttons used those surface mount LEDs(the really tiny one soldered right to the circuit board). Were you able to do anything to the tach and speedo needles? I would think that you could get some acrylic plastic cut the same size and have whatever color you want!
 
yea get it together i would love to change mine
 
Im going to post a pic of my instrument cluster... . so far its the only pic I have.... the instrument cluster does NOT use the surface mount led's but the heater controls do... havent got those in yet.... everything else uses standard led's... but with a voltage of 2.6 to 3.2 volts.... got that part solved tho....

as foor the instrument cluster... well... the needles show up just fine... the hard part is getting them back on just right... cause u have to remove them so that you can take the instrument cluster "sheet" with the numbers n stuff on it and sand the back side of it with sandpaper....

ls dash 1.jpg
 
That is AWESOME! I want! Now if only we can find a color screen for the message center and odometer...

What are you sanding off of the plastic sheet? Is the green color the lights or a coating on that sheet?
 
well, this is a bit confusing... but i will try to explain....

pricing... so far I have about 200.00 in all the led's and bulbs n stuffs... this is cause if you order the crappy regular bulbs in led or incandescent they dont light up the instrument cluster right....

As for what has been changed to blue in my car....

instrument cluster
4 status control buttons above radio
ats traction button light
heated seat buttons
power window switches front and rear
door lock buttons front and rear
seat position selector switch front and rear
healight switch light
power mirror adjust switch

several of the lights can just be replaced with blue led bulbs.... but the intrument cluster "sheet" is coated with the green coloring.... it has to be sanded off... this is the case with a few other things in the car.... and if you sand too much... you ruin the actual numbers or picture.... trust me i found out the hard way..... the gear selector switch is actually 1 solid peice of plastic with the green color inside of it... so just changing the bulb does not work, I am actually in the process of making a new one from a mold of my oold one.....

If people are interested the kit would probably be around 200 bucks... but it would include all the bulbs and some really good instructions....
 
I would think that would be a mod that people would pay for if they can choose they colors they want and it covers all of the lights you mentioned. Good work. Looking forward the the write-up.
 
Available colors would include blue, red, amber, super white and if you would want it.... UV (Ultra Violet) or green... but putting in green led's sorta defeats the purpouse..... lol

and in the price I would also include a clear painted and ready to go mold of the gear selector peice....

as I said, right now I am just trying to figure out if enough people are interested and I still have to finish the mold of my gear selector unit annd figure out which led's are needed and work for the heater controls....

just sorta feeling stuff out... but dont worry, it will be available..... and just to let everyone know.... i have already spent all the hard times figuring out which bulbs work the best.... i mean totally i think i have spent about 500 bucks total.... between bulbs and replacing the instrument cluster sheet after messing up my first one....
 
That looks great! And yea if you can come up with more pics and like kind of a list of what is included im sure you will get plenty of sales.

edit: and I hope this works on the Gen2s
 
I was looking at some pics where one of the guys has the white face gauges and his has blue and red numbers. Can we have multiple color LEDs or do a few of them light up the whole area? Or if you sand the back of the plastic gauge sheet you could add colored transparent plastic to different parts(EX. blue speedo and red tach or blue M/HR and red K/HR). You could also do that to highlight redline(noticed yours is gone) or a certain speed.

Yeah I would almost personally do pure white on the gauges and add color to certain spots like redline, hot/cold on the temp gauge, E on the fuel gauge.

Haha, want to get really fancy and technical? Set it up with a controller so that you can have it change colors, flash, ect. (that would be extreme)
 
I would like Hyper White.

What type/size of LEDs fit behind the pieces you changed? Is there a size/part number?
 
as for the gauge cluster question on multiple colors... well, there are 6 lights behind the instrument cluster that light up everything in the cluster at once.... once the green or red (on the tach, for redline) is sanded off it is all white.... if you would want the red to show up really well, some red permanant marker, or a very light coat of red finger nail polish works well... you could apply the red color to any part of the cluster....

I have not thought of doing multiple colors on an instrument cluster.... i guess you could use super white led's... and just paint the cluster the colors you wanted to have show up....
 
Yea I want white also, then you can buy transparent color sheets and tape or glue them where you want them, that would be awesome
 
Andrizzle said:
Yea I want white also, then you can buy transparent color sheets and tape or glue them where you want them, that would be awesome
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly! Now lets all do it and we can all have LS's that are even more different from what anyone else has!
 
SO....wwhat type of LEDs it behind the cluster, window controls, etc???


I think I'm going touse Hyper Whites and paint the needles blue
 
xtantaudio....is your proposed package going to include the bulbs for the whole car or just the gears?

If for the whole car, please ignore my question about bulb sizes. i'll just buy them from you
 
I.m in the midst of redoing my interior. I already switched out all the curteousy lights to white LED, painting the center console jet black, dying carpets black, suede headliner-doors-pillars, sewing in Lincoln patches in the seats/floor mats, etc. This would be a fantastic capper to end my project with. Get this done ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I'm doing the interior LED's as well. I've been debating on getting the white face gauges. I would definitely be interested in getting this from you also. I would want to do the super white with the accented colors. Another gauge color I like is the one that some Jettas have that have that black light glow, is that what the uv one would be? If that's the case I would want to go that route with white face gauges.
 
This sounds really nice. More pics would be nice.

One thing in particular I'd really like is this gear selector mold. Can you get one that has the +/- buttons reversed? Or are you just doing the non-sport gear selector?
 
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