Well, it didn't go completely smoothly, but I did manage to get my gauge faces installed. Thanks to minjae for pointing me in the right direction for help calibrating the tach needle.

You'll see in the pics that the speedo needle is off by -5 mph. I never use the center speedo, and opening everything up to fix the needle requires more work and patience than I have at this point. Someday maybe it will get fixed.

Couple of notes on installation. My car is a 6/04 build and the ring around the speedo does not come off. In fact, it proved to be an excellent handle when it came time to yank the center trim off. Also, that center trim is held on with clips at the bottom as well as on the top, and requires quite a bit of force to remove. Once that was out of the way, I had to deal with unlatching the various tabs holding the speedo trim, glass, etc. together. I highly recommend having an assistant at this point. I fought with that thing forever!

Finally, you'll notice the 2 and the 4 on the tach are gray instead of white. I bought my faces from the Marketplace and something must have happened to the white backing behind those numbers. I think I might be able to re-white them with some office supply white-out tape, but for now I'm just happy to have finished with this job!

It really is a great mod. I'd consider paying someone maybe $150 to do it for me, though.

Before:


Afters (different time of day, so the trim color looks bluish):

 

have not put mine on yet& thanks to you i discovered that i have the same problem with the faces. its going back mon. to be replaced or redone.
thanks again fore the post. doug

 

If they had those in black with banana yellow increments like a Porsche or Ferrari that would get me to crack and buy em.

 

I bought mine from Danny at MINICorsa and he installed them for free! =)

 

You've got all the connections, don't you? Of course it helped that you were spending plenty of other money at Minicorsa at the time, too!

 

Haha. Well while that's true I did spend like $3K that day, Danny was advertising the CS as an installed price. I did make it easier for him too, since I already had my dash removed. I don't know if he's still doing that--but it was on his site when he announced them late last year--$150 installed. You could spend that from a retailer including shipping, and still have to deal with installing---or just cruise up to his shop, and get it all done in one step. =)

When I got my Megans, he installed them and set the ride height for me all at once--I know others have spent a month trying to get it right themselves. =)

While in the past I've enjoyed doing my own mods, for most things, I feel more confident knowing that Danny did it for me--especially that I don't have to worry about things going south during an install...lol.

Richard

 

The great thing about NAM is that it's given me the wherewithall and the confidence to attempt mods myself. I put in my aux input and the auto-up circuit before, and managed to route my Sirius antenna myself, too. Now I've torn my dash apart to replace gauge faces. I only had issues with the needles this time. Other than that everything has gone smoothly.

 

How do they look lit up at night?

 

My first impression was that the numbers looked brighter and more orange than before. I'll try to take a pic tonight.

 

Night pics:

 

Looks good, but PLEEEEASE, I can't bear to look at the misaligned speedo needle. Here is what I wrote in your other thread.

 

Looks great!

 

I feel your pain. Someday I'm sure I'll feel like taking my dash apart and dealing with those clips again, but I'm afraid it won't be for a while!

 

You painted the needles too, huh? That's my biggest concern when I get mine installed. I got the charcoal faces, but I did not intend to change the needle base color from silver to black. Do you think this would be a mistake? What type of paint did you use to paint yours black?

 

I had some leftover satin black spraypaint. The cap on the can matched the gauges pretty well, but the finished product is a a little dark and I think flat paint would be a better match to the gauge faces.

I think there are pictures of other people's gauges on NAM with the stock silver needle caps if you want to see the difference.

 

those look awesome..and they do seem much brighter.
still looks awesome. and glad i could point you in the right direction

 

Thanks - the only drawback to the darker faces I've found is the increased glare, especially on that big ol' speedometer.

 

I came up with something that can help: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...d.php?t=109946

I've been too busy to follow up on what I wrote on that thread, but I am starting to pick up on it again.