well yesterday i was bored and i read about changing the colors of the instrument panel. Which i really wanted blue gauges. Well anyways, i couldn't find any color gels for lighting equipment so instead i pulled out all the bulbs throughout from the dimmer switch, all the instrument bulbs and the HVAC bulbs and colored them with a blue sharpee, which it worked great, now all my controls are a fairly deep color of blue instead of the stock green, and look awesome and are not as bright, making it easier on the eyes. My only problem though is by doing that it really darkened my needles color now too, the needles glow closer to a burnt orange to almost red now instead of a really bright orange, which looks nice but it makes it kinda hard to read the longer needles on the speedo and tach, specially the speedo, because the light they do get doesn't travel all the way to the tip of the needle. So it's hard to tell how fast i'm going. i was wandering if anyone else had done this and is there was a way to get my orange needles back to a bright stock orange while keeping the dark blue on everything else. if not i guess i'll live, but i thought it would be nice if i could have the needles be bright orange. Below is a pic of what it looks like right now and i just wish the needles we're just a little bit brighter. any advice would be great. Thanks

 

that looks great i would love to have mine look like that it would match my gauges and blue led cab lights.

 

Very cool, I've been wanting to do Chris Epps blue led dash light mod but I don't want to spend the cash on the LEDs. I'm interested in what you did and if it'll last for a longtime being colored with a sharpie. If it does work out good, i'll try it on my truck.

 

yeah i'll keep an eye on them and if they lighten up a bit i'll let you know. Say i look at more like it's worth a shot and it's worked out so far. Then if the color does fade and eventually turn green again oh well, it didn't cost me anything since i already had the sharpee. Then i'll take the time and fork up the extra dough to get new bulbs that are blue either LED's or if i can find regular replacements. say this was just something i wanted to try and it's worked so far. looks awesome with my cd player that has all blue controls and all my toggle switches that glow blue when turned on and i'm looking to get gauges that are backlit blue. i love it man

 

I did that to my GTO in high School. The marker wears off after a while and you might need to re-mark the bulbs. Blue guages are always cool and easy on the eyeballs!

 

yeah it has started to wear off a little bit, not major, but enough to where it's easier to see the needles now. Sooner of later i'll get replacement bulbs for it so that they'll be blue all the time, i just wanted to see how well it would work. by 4th of july or soo it'll probably be back to green again, but oh well.

 

i did the same thing but sourced blue led's for mine...now all my isspro gauges and dash gauges match.

 

Are your heater controls and headlight switch also blue too?

 

How much does it cost to do it right?

 

yeah i get a lot of complements and i love the way they look. the only downside is the dimmer no longer works with the led's. You can buy the led's online from a couple of different places they are wedge 194's in the dash and t-10 and t-4 in the isspro gauges. i want to say it was around 65.00 for enough to do all 4 gauges, stock gauge cluster,hvac, and headlight switch.

the hvac really needs two more led's to make it brighter in 2 of the four corners, the stock incandescent bulbs do a great job at this when they are white but even with the wide angle led's its not perfect. the headlight switch is as bright as the stock cluster.

to do this mod on the hvac and the headlight switch requires modding of the light holder and the led so make sure you buy a couple of extra in case you mess up. i will try and post some pics of the headlight switch and the hvac tommorrow.