[Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

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shinny
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[Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

OK, I've had this up on MR2OC for a month or two now, but as I've just shared with an IMOC'er how to achieve this, I figured I'd post up publicly here too.

So, at a net cost of about £7, I took some stock rev3 turbo gauges (with a custom AFR/Volt gauge in the boost gauge location) and made them look like this at night:

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The concept is pretty darn simple really.

1) Get some white LED bulbs in the cluster. Any one of these designs will do the trick.

Image

The light spread is very important and no other LED bulb I've tried compares to these when used in the cluster. If those exact ones are not available then try to find others with similar flat construction.

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2) Get some coloured lighting gel for the colour you want your speedo to be. No reason why this has to be a single colour either as you can design any colour combo you want. Although the nature of white LEDs means blue will probably work best, people have had good success with green and others have made the red of the rev5 gauges redder.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000L9CR7O/

3) Having disassembled the clocks, cut the gel roughly to shape and carefully slide the gel between the clock face and the clear perspex backing. (With the speedo and tacho, I'd be extra careful to hold down the needles, as resetting them accurately once they've popped off is tricky and annoying)

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This will only tint the light going out of the faces, leaving the needles to be a slightly light shade of red and the odometer a very clear white. This will work brilliantly on any part of the clock faces that normally illuminates white, but the red or orange parts of the face might not work so well, as you can see below in comparison to the shot above:

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4) If it bothers you and you have the patience, you can carefully cut out holes in the gel to let light through untinted to the coloured parts of the clock face, as you can see I have done above. These is almost no margin for error when cutting out the redline on the tacho, so once you've cut the gel and positioned it on the face correctly you may want to use a piece of clear sticky tape to hold the gel in position.

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The result is a very simple, stock looking gauge which illuminates to match your colour scheme at night. They have very slight hot/cold spots... but for the money you'd forgive their minor imperfections.

Plenty of people have done this successfully now, and people generally find it very easy. Of course you don't get the options of graphics like on speedhuts, but speedhuts don't give you the red-line when illuminated at night. All in all, after alot of other experimenting with the cluster, I'm very happy with the end result on these :thumleft:

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Last edited by shinny on Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:27 am, edited 4 times in total.
Tsia
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by Tsia »

That looks fantastic. :thumleft:
alan_uk
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by alan_uk »

looks sweet bud and cheers for the heads up :)

im on the look out for someone who can make a custom set of dials to look very similar to yours now as i dont think the stock rev 5 clusters will look right with the red print on them :(

so its a waiting game now hopefully i wont have to shell out on speed hut's
shinny
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

Buy a matching rev2-rev4 cluster, adjust the odometer and Robert is my mother's brother (honestly... he lives in an octagonal house in Australia!) :thumleft:

The dial faces are very carefully engineered by Toyota to avoid hotspots etc (just look at the back of them!) so anything custom made won't be as even as stock faces until you go EL-Glow.
shinny
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

Just to demonstrate, here's Mark (Rover76's) gauges when he used green film with the strainless dial faces you get:

Image

Note the hot spots under each bulb (20mph, 140mph, 2000rpm, 8000rpm) and the tail off at the top of the battery gauge. The stock gauges have very exact printing on the back of them to even this all out :thumleft:

AFAIK, Mark has now gone back to the standard dial faces with green gel.

Dan d-peg used red gel carefully cut out to made the read bits on the rev5 gauges less pink and more red. He was very happy with the result:

Image

BTW, as a final note, I popped a filament 501 into the cluster last night to see if that was better than the LEDs. It was considerably dimmer and barely lit up the odometer. Those LEDs are the way forward :thumleft:
Last edited by shinny on Wed Oct 17, 2012 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
craig
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by craig »

Looks great mate, I like the stock dials. More than speedhut/lockwood and the like. :thumleft:
shinny
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

RedMR² wrote:Looks great mate, I like the stock dials. More than speedhut/lockwood and the like. :thumleft:


Thanks :thumleft:

Gotta say, I'm not a fan of white faced dials, simply because there's an hour or so at dusk when you cannot see the markings on them because your illumination has bought the ticks to the same brightness as the white background! #-o

I was thinking of splashing out on speedhuts without any logos and blue illumination on a black background... but figured £90+ for what was almost not change seemed excessive! Then I did the same but better for £7 :lol:
craig
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by craig »

The speedhuts look nice, don't get me wrong, but £90? Think I'll pass :mrgreen:
shinny
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

RedMR² wrote:The speedhuts look nice, don't get me wrong, but £90? Think I'll pass :mrgreen:


I know... for a much more reasonable £45 you can have "Plasma" dials for the full in-car funfair experience! \:D/

Image

I hear they come with a free stick of candy-floss...
craig
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by craig »

now now :lol:




.......but yeah, think I'll pass.......again :mrgreen:
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toxo
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by toxo »

shinny wrote:
RedMR² wrote:The speedhuts look nice, don't get me wrong, but £90? Think I'll pass :mrgreen:


I know... for a much more reasonable £45 you can have "Plasma" dials for the full in-car funfair experience! \:D/

Image Replaced With URL For Quote http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk12 ... c48f49.jpg

I hear they come with a free stick of candy-floss...


:lol:
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Ryan S
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by Ryan S »

is the colour stuff just a transparent sheet of coloured plastic??

if so they are on ebay for about 10 pence :D
shinny
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

sheppy wrote:is the colour stuff just a transparent sheet of coloured plastic??

if so they are on ebay for about 10 pence :D


Yup, pretty much - got a link?
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Ryan S
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by Ryan S »

just put in transparent coloured plastic, looooooads of results come up, this was after i ordered stuff from amazon using your link ](*,) ](*,)
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by Ryan S »

there is self adhesive types as well, i don;t know if this would make it easier or not, since i don't know how it all works until i take the clocks apart.
shinny
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

sheppy wrote:there is self adhesive types as well, i don;t know if this would make it easier or not, since i don't know how it all works until i take the clocks apart.


The only ones I could see trying your search were adhesive ones, which would make life trickier IMHO. Particularly any precise cut out areas needed, like those bits I did for the red areas, would be almost impossible to line up with self adhesive film :-k
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Ryan S
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by Ryan S »

shinny wrote:
sheppy wrote:there is self adhesive types as well, i don;t know if this would make it easier or not, since i don't know how it all works until i take the clocks apart.


The only ones I could see trying your search were adhesive ones, which would make life trickier IMHO. Particularly any precise cut out areas needed, like those bits I did for the red areas, would be almost impossible to line up with self adhesive film :-k



shoot, so they are, i didn't realise they were ALL self adhesive, apologies, have you got any pics of how you've stuck it on?? i'm trying to figure out how to do this in my head, i've never had the cluster out before :(

so no idea what the back of it looks like.
shinny
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

1) Remove instrument cluster
2) Detach the black surround from the white housing (8 tabs)
3) Unscrew each gauge
4) Cut down piece of lighting gel to fit
5) Slide each piece between the black dial face and the perspex backing - there may me a little double sided tape holding the faces on.
6) No need to secure the gel mostly - if you do something that cuts holes in the gel that needs to be precisely located then a bit of sticky tape holding it to the back of the dial face will suffice
7) Reassemble

I wish I'd have taken photos when I last had the clocks apart #-o
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Ryan S
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by Ryan S »

cheers for that mate, :thumleft:

i'll see if i can find some pics on google, just wanna see what they look like when they're out, it will make more sense :lol:

just waiting on my LED's and coloured film, although, annoyingly, the cluster is coming out on friday night regardless, got a boost gauge i wanna fix, so i'll get a goo look at them then, also, somebody has been in about them with led's before anyway, the lighting is all over the place ](*,)
shinny
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Re: [Mk2] [Generic] The speedhut look for a fraction of the cost

Post by shinny »

Don't say I'm nto good to you :wink:

I was taking the cluster out for a couple of minutes tonight, so took a couple of photos of the tacho for you:

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Here you can see how I cut out precise holes for the red parts of the tacho's redline. Those with good eyes will also be able to see the bit of sticky tape holding it in place:


Image
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