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AU2 Blue Dash Mod (Needles) 

 

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 Post subject: AU2 Blue Dash Mod (Needles)
Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 9:52 pm 
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I thought I would ask over here as well. Iv made blue dash leds using 5000mcd led's. They work fine and it looks really good at night. The downside is the needles dont light up at all and I have no idea what speed im doing. I have an AU2 Forte and the needles are red (all the plastic is red) so shaving the needles back wont remove the red. I can't get AU1 needles (unless ford sell them without the cluster which I doubt).

Im either going ot have to put the old bulbs back in :(
Or find some way to light up the needles. The only thing I can think of is to have the cluster with red led's other then blue but I think that would suck. I also heard red led's above the speedo and tacho will make the needles light up but the colour will appear red/purple in the middle. I want to keep them all blue and need to somehow find a way to light up all of the needles... any suggestions :?
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Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 10:38 pm 
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I have an AUI Cluster that I am messing around with at the moment.
Here are some of my findings....
The needles from the AUI are the same as AUII. I.E. there is no paint on them to shave off....

The needles from an EF / EL Cluster will not fit. (The AU Needles are longer, both in length (Sweep), and in the shank.

If you can provide white light behind the needles (Still looking at this option), the needle will light up a nice bright red, but the cluster will still light up blue.

Red and / or white LED's work well with the AU Clusters, though I havent tried mixing them up yet to see if I can get pink :shock:

Also as a side note, you can change the colour of the LCD Panel on AUI Clusters.... Not sure about AUII-III Clusters yet.

 

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Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:04 pm 
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RED IS AWESOME in au dash works wonders i got red in mine look sso cool and easy on the eyes
i need some pics.....

1 thing i have found the au cluster's +VE track sucks and can blow real easy and u need to run a jump wire to each of teh leds

 

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Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:41 pm 
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Yes we blew the dash in my friends EL. We put them in turned them on smelt smoke. That was the end of the dash. Well dash works but that strip with the lights on it doesn't work. What exactly do you do wrong to blow the dash?

I was preety worried about doing it to my au but did it anyway. All came out good but the needles are a big problem can't even see them at night which takes away the hole point of the mod.

Have a look at this pic the dash lights up well. This guys dash lights up well.
Image

Hopefully I can get them to light up as I dont want to go back to the old colour :(
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Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:49 pm 
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{USERNAME} wrote:

The needles from the AUI are the same as AUII.
.
Nope they are not AU11/111 needles are a red plasic with little black cap on them .

 

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Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:55 pm 
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Im thinking of just going back to jaycar and getting red led's :( Only problem is ford wants $4 per bulb holder which means an extra $32 then around $25 on leds.

What exactly is it you must avoid doing to blow the track on your dash?
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Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:46 pm 
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{USERNAME} wrote:
Im thinking of just going back to jaycar and getting red led's :( Only problem is ford wants $4 per bulb holder which means an extra $32 then around $25 on leds.

What exactly is it you must avoid doing to blow the track on your dash?


Fuzion was able to get these Pre-Made with the bulb holders
PM him and see what happens
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Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:27 pm 
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Just a thought, could you not use a black light in the front of the cluster assembly. just a thought, then the cluster would light up blue and the needles would stand out as they react with the black light.

Just need to hide the blacklight behind the cluster clear plastic so it only shines on the instruments.
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Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:51 pm 
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Consider using the bulb covers instead. I done this with the blue, but I had the same problems with the needles.

The blue bulb covers worked fine. The dash came out a great shade of blue. Just pull out the current bulb, whack a cover on it and put it back in.

The other idea I had was:

Peal the display off the unit, colour the back of the display blue (where the white light would normally shine through). This would give you the blue dash, but still using white light, so no needle problems.

However I could'nt get the needles off to remove the display. I was scared of damaging them. I dont even know if they do come off.

Does anyone know if the needles come off an AUII cluster, or are they permanent???????????

Shugg
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Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 6:30 pm 
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The needles do come off such as when you are putting on the white background.

I bought 2xbulb holders and 2 red 6500mcd leds today. I put them in behind the speedo ill let ya know how i go.
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Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 2:55 pm 
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only fix i can maybe think of is getting some BA needles?
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Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 10:59 am 
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The two red led's for the speedo make all the other needles light up now. So I have a blue tacho, temperature, fuel and red speedo.

Only issues are
- the red led's are too bright (6500mcd)
- the red becomes more of a pink
- some of the red spills over into the temperature

It works ok but I think i need to still keep working on it.

The worst part of the mod is getting out the dash. I follow the insturction on aufalcon.com but always feel like im going to brake the dash (i actually did brake two pins on the top of it for holding on the clear cover) though it didnt really matter as all the other pins are enough to hold it down. I think i dropped an allen key in there last time i tried :(

I get the keys in pull it foward but feels like its gonna brake the dash and im never keen on getting it out.
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Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:30 pm 
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man juts change em all to red i did looks heap nicer and much easier to read at night time than blue!

btw i can gte my dash out easy! takes practice

 

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Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:11 pm 
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{USERNAME} wrote:
man juts change em all to red i did looks heap nicer and much easier to read at night time than blue!

btw i can gte my dash out easy! takes practice


Any tips or tricks :wink:

I nearly destory it every time i try with the allen keys
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Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 8:15 pm 
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Paint the the needle with a fluro paint, orange, red, yellow, green what ever you like. Blue Led's have a UV component which makes any fluro colour glow.
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