[psycho chicken]

heh, it's 3am and I just finished working on stuff (read; the dash is still in pieces). Ripped the cluster out, pulled it apart, scanned all the guages, today's job is editing the horrible yellow to white, changing a few other things and general tidying it up.

What you think?

Dunno how cheap this is gonna work out, should be cheaper than getting custom ones made. The plan is to get clear plasic copies of the facias, then get stickers for both sides printed up, replace the lot, paint the needles white then get the thing re-calibrated (all this messing around CAN'T be good for it).

I know it's a lot of effort, but I'd rather do it myself than pay for it. If it turns out I might be able to do some different versions, depending on what people what.

All so the blue LEDs will show up a little better.

 

[EFFalcon]

fantastic work, can't see why it wouldn't work.
cheap mods that u do yaself are the best, ya screw it up, who cares

 

[NZ]

Make 2 sets
Im not that keen on the Orange myself

 

[Dellboy999]

When you get the process sorted I have an EA Ghia I want to do this too :0)

 

[XRated]

Good to see someone taking the initiative! It'd be cool to have some custom ones made up. Is it legal? Would it go through RWC etc? Wouldn't you need an engineering report or something? Regardless, can't wait to see the end result, so keep us all posted!

 

[b-juggles]

damn...your about a million times more patient than I am thats all i can say!

 

[XplodEd EA]

I remember a long time ago someone went through that exact same process with his dash and had more or less the same idea with printing it onto clear plastic and sticking it on. I'm pretty sure he bought another car and we never saw the finished result.

Goodluck with it, if you pull it off succesfully I'm sure there'd be more than a few people willing to purchase them off you if your interested in making a bit of money on the side. I know I'll be hassling you if I get an ED

 

[psycho chicken]

Ummm, I'm gonna have to figure out something else, I'm currently driving without a working speedo or tacho. Fuel, oil pressure, voltage and temp are fine, but the other two are buggered. Spose I'll get this printed up asap and go get a grilling from a cluster place about opening it.

 

[mad_ea_spac]

yeah that looks sick!
you can add a ea spac to the list too :s5

 

[Dellboy999]

They stopped working, I have pulled mine apart heaps of times, I have a normal tacho and digital speedo, always worked, never had a problem , thats a bummer

 

[psycho chicken]

Did you pull the needles off?

All the needle came off with the little bar thing they have attached to them, with the exception of the speedo and oil guage, where the needle seperated from the stalk, showing a little cog like thing. The two of em were a pain in the arse to get on, didn't go back on level :S

The tacho works, but when you turn the car off it drops further down. IE; my idle right now is about -1000 RPM on the guage.

Must be something to do with the larger needles, the smaller ones are fine.

Anyone got a spare cluster I could borrow for a few weeks (I'd buy one but I'm pretty broke for a little while)? Doesn't matter what type, just need a working speedo. Can't see the point in getting this repaired if the same thing is gonna happen when I put the facia in.

 

[Dellboy999]

Yeah putting the tacho need right is a pain, but i havent had a problem doing it all.

stick the smaller ones back in then, the larger weigh more ?? right, so they would drop a fair bit, due to extra weight, the gauages are designed for certain weight needles.

Jason

 

[psycho chicken]

I'll go rip it apart again and see what i can do.

 

[psycho chicken]

Ok, working again, dunno how accurate, bout to tag behind dad to find out.

 

[Dellboy999]

Cool - good luck, back to normal would be good

 

[XRated]

Can you get some pics of the newly printed cluster installed?

 

[psycho chicken]

Haven't printed out a final copy yet, so far I've finished the speedo, working on the tacho. The yellow is white, just tidying up the edges a bit.

Once the're all done I'll probably have to print up some to put in while I have the origianl facias out to get copied, I'll get a pic of that, no matter how botcho it looks.

Just an EOI, if they turn out cheap enough and decent enough, what colours would you guys want? I'm thinking the following;

White on black
Black on white
Red on white
White on red
Blue on white
White on blue

Of course I can add Tickford/Ford logos if anyone wants em, most likely on the tacho inbetween the needle and high beam light.

 

[XRated]

I'd probably be only interested in black/white contrast as my car is white! But I guess if I see your colour schemes I could easily be persuaded - white on blue sounds nice.

 

[EDXR8]

Either white on black and white on blue (darker metalic blue) I think.

 

[THEONE]

white and blue sounds good or blue and white sounds good ,if they work out i'll chuck ya some $$$ for one