I changed my clear 194 bulbs in my dash to blue ones that I bought at wal-mart. Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed. I was going for an indiglo look but it turned out more of a dull turquoise than blue. I have a bright blue Pioneer cd player that I was trying to match but the colors really clash now.
Here's what it looks like.... but the picture makes it look more blue:
http://www.cass.net/~maak/bluegauges.jpg

Does anyone know of a different type of bulb, maybe brighter and a true blue (or even purplish) that doesn't cost a fortune? I got 10 of these cheap bulbs at walmart for under $16. Gimme some suggestions.... I may just end up buying the reverse indiglo gauges off Ebay.

 

works now

 

Very nice! Was it hard?

 

How would I got about putting LEDs in? I thought I could only use 194 bulbs.

 

Ditto...get the quad 194 LEDs from www.superbrightleds.com . I have blue ones and they look awesome . They are a very bright blue, they definitely look sweet. I think they are around $2.30 a piece or something like that. You can get the look of blue guages for around $15 and they look like the Indiglo reverse gauges. I actually had someone comment on how much they liked my Indiglo guages and I was like I just put blue LEDs in.

Bryan

Edit: The LEDs will replace the 194 bulbs. They are the same thing just the LEDs are much brighter.

 

not too bad... the hardest part was getting to the cluster, I had to take so much crap off, even my heater controls and the trim that goes along the top of my door (maybe there's an easier way.... but not that I could see). Once I got the thing out, the bulbs weren't too hard to replace other than the fact that the old ones were soldered to the socket things... I ended up having to just break most of the bulbs to get them out.

 

sounds perfect... I'll definitely check into those, thanks!

 

shelby,

Which 194 leds did you end up using? There the single point or the 4 point designs.
I put the 4-point ones in my car and am not happy with them at all The light comes mostly out of the front of the bulb and does not illuminate the gauges evenly. If you used the single point leds I was wondering how much brighter than stock they turned out to be and if they distributed the light evenly on the gauges.

Do you have any pics of your gauges?

 

The above came from superbrightleds.com

Maewens site contradicts this. Here is what his says

So which is better?

 

That's the reason I got the 4-point bulbs, I thought they would disperse the light better... Just need to find out if the 1-point bulbs do a better job than stock...

 

It seems like the single point bulbs would do a better job. I'll buy some and let you guys know. Also... there's like 20 bulbs in the back of the cluster and it was hard to tell which ones I needed to replace. The ones that are already tinted I won't replace (blinkers, high beams, odometer, check engine light, etc). Is there a diagram anywhere that says what bulbs go to what?

If not.... I'll make one next time I take it apart, I'm sure it would come in useful for the next person that does this.

 

I got the 4 point LEDs. I'm pretty happy with them for the most part. The lighting is not totally even throughout the guages but its close. But the color and brightness is great so I'm satisfied with them. Sorry no pics right now but I'll get some soon and post them here.

Bryan

 

I think I have a double whammy here, since I also have the MAcewen white gauge overlays, new the bulbs are shining throug to layers of plastic instead of just one, excaserbating the light distribution problem.

 

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here but has anyone tried using different colored LEDs, to make kind of a blending effect? Kinda like this:

http://www.cass.net/~maak/prettybulbs.jpg

I'm gonna try it.

 

hey i think that looks pretty cool. its more blue than i thought it would be. i want to change mine to red, i think im going to now that looks really good.
nice DIY job!!