Just for kicks I replaced the aluminum AutoMeter gauge face, scanned it and printed it on photo paper. This is how the illumination looks. Much better, but still not right....

 

Wow, that last picture sucks.... You get the idea though....

Found this on electic gauge calibration. That's tomorrows project.

http://alteredz.com/gagecalibration.htm

--Alex

 

Me likey where this is going...

Waiting to see completed and some (edit)BETTER(edit) night/illuminated shots,

 

Are you going to use the green light "condom" to make the lights illuminate the same color as the stock gauges?

 

They're all on still. I didn't put an additional bulb behind the gauge. I think what I'll do is put a green filter behind the new gauge face. Hopefully that'l do it.
--Alex

 

6 year thread necro. Because its the best thread covering the topic. Those who have put other gauges in the stock hood, where did you pull power for the lighting so the gauge lights turned on with the stock gauges?

 

Just tie the aftermarket bulb into the bulb circuit on the flexible circuit board.

C

 

Thats the obvious answer. I havent taken the cluster apart yet. I'm guessing once I have it apart it will be super obvious which tracing is for the rest of the bulbs.

 

All will be clear once you've got it in front of you.

C

 

I highly recommend NOT soldering to the flex circuit, make contact mechanically.

-Zach

 

If you can get the gauge cluster out, finding the nearby fuse box below the steering wheel should be an absolute cakewalk.

 

I did this with my tach. After messing with the stock tach way to much I could not get it to work with my sawp. I used an autoguage tack removed it from its housing and was able to mount it in the cluster and run the wires out tapping into the power and ground screws on the cluster without ever having to cut the circuit board and it uses the factory back lighting and works well. This one also has a shift light built in that I extended the wires to the dash for the adjustment ****. After seeing this I should have done my oil pressure gauge at the same time.

 

Not seeing a good spot to make mechanical contact to the illumination +12 connection. I'm going to be grounding the sensor to the chassis, but as you can see I already found a good IGN +12 for the gauge itself and a ground that works for the illumination.

*did some more reading. I already have the lighting wiring wrong. Need to use the ground and the +12 from the lights since the ground it what is switched.

 

Yeah, you need to run both bulb leads to the dimmer circuit, otherwise the bulb will dim in reverse to where you set the dimmer. I just checked a spare cluster, and unfortunately none of the screw terminals go to the backlight circuit. So you will need to either tap into the wire harness, or solder directly to the flexible circuit board. It's not hard, you just need a very light touch. Obviously you can't keep the soldering iron in contact long, but tinning the connection first helps.

C

 

That is the conclusion I came to. Going to do it next week.