Gauges and Needles Question

[Davyboy]

Okay I'm thinking about making my gauges blue, and wanted to remove my needles and change them from the puke orange to glow blueish as well.

Now my question is simple, I've read on a few places that the tach, temp etc will have no problems, but that the speedo needle contains some sort of spring and pulling it off will basically wreck it. Is this true? Is there another way to get it off to change the color or not?

I have looked around the forums and around the web, and I was wondering if anyone else that had changed their gauges have taken them off and had problems, or if this is just blown out of proportion? Any help is very much so appreciated, thanks guys.

 

[haks310]

Take them off, you'll be fine. They will never be accurate again though.

Idle your truck and get it to operating temperature, then take a picture of all the needles. Once you are ready to install everything back in...install the gauge without the needles and the clear cover. Idle your truck to operating temp, look at the pictures you took earlier and install the needles.

Having a scanner would be optimal, you can get the exact readings for you RPM, Temp, Volts and so on. Then you would just install your needles according to the readings.

 

[Davyboy]

Yeah, i'd done the temp etc, was just worried about the speedo, i know it won't be 100% accurate, however with running a gps, all i'll do is find what it says when my speedo says 80km and get going that fast with cruise on, it'll work out
I'm debating on blue or clear (either way I want blue LED's)

 

[haks310]

Blue for the needles?

 

[Davyboy]

Yes, I was intending on replacing the lights blue, and either simply clearing the needles or going a transparent blue.

 

[haks310]

That is what I am thinking of doing with mine, going red though. Right now I have the Esky cluster with clear needles...going to sand down the OEM orange needles and use some Testors paint to get them red.

 

[Davyboy]

By testers paint, do you mean like the model paint, for plastic?
If so I've got tons of the stuff, I have the top four small ones cleared, decided to give ink a run to see if I like it, however either one of two problems.
It isn't reflective enough to show the light well at night, or the lights in my dash already aren't bright enough.

They look really good blue, was just wondering if the testers paint u guys are talking about is the model paint or another kind that I should go out and buy.

 

[haks310]

Nope, it is the model paint.

 

[Davyboy]

Okay, well I'm going to try blue for mine, with stock lights (for now), I'll post some pictures when i paint them, hopefully tonight or tomorrow afternoon