Gauge Color Change Using Factory Overlays (by N3ELZ and $tone02 -- published formerly on Generation-Edge)

Introduction

This mod changes your dashboard color from green to a wide range of colors of your choice. It utilizes transparent glass paint. The kind I used and can recommend is "Delta Air Dry PermEnamel Transparent Glass Paint" as shown here. It is available a many hobby and craft stores, or can be ordered over the internet. The complete kit shown here cost $6.00 on sale and shouldn't run you more than $10 to $12 in any case. Here's a link to the manufacturers web site.

What's involved is taking your dashboard apart, removing the overlays, scraping the green tint off the back, and then repainting them with the glass paint in the color of your choice. This article will not cover taking your dashboard apart because there are already several good articles out there on this. Here's a
Ranger Power Sports article on 95+ gauge removal

Now, this article is LONG because I've tried to include enough detail that you won't have too many questions. However, this is NOT real complicated. Mainly it's time consuming. The hardest thing about it is getting the dash apart and back together. And it is DIRT CHEAP, which appeals to my Scottish (Well, Scots/Irish actually) soul!

Materials Required

Dash removal tools -- see RPS article above.

Some kind of scraper to remove old paint (see article instructions)

Permenamel glass paint kit or equivalent

Applicator rod and/or small/fine paint brush.

Mildly adhesive double sided tape (I used "poster tape")

Thin sharp knife

Time Required

Dash removal/reinstallation: 30 minutes to over an hour total (depending on how many times you've done it, and your "comfort level").

Overlay scraping/painting: 2 to 4 hours or more depending on your skill.

Paint drying time: 2 to 4 hours minimum -- overnight is better.

Instructions

Note on needle removal: Before you start, warm up your vehicle and carefully note where the oil, battery, fuel, and temperature gauge needles all stay. Making a sketch is good. Also note your hot idle RPM on the tach. This will let you put everything but the speedometer needle back where it was easily. The speedometer we will cover later.

1. Remove your gauge cluster and/or take off the gauge cluster transparent cover piece. You can take the gauges completely off, or you can try to remove the overlays with them in the vehcle once you get the dashboard pieces, and the transparent cover off. If you have an automatic, you'll need to take out the cluster part way and release the gear position indicator. There are two lock tabs which you push back, and it pulls straight out the bottom of the gauge pod.

2. Remove the needles. There are "needle" removal tools available. I just took a piece of thin insulated wire, put it under the center hub of the needle from the side OPPOSITE from where the needle sticks out, got it in the center, and carefully pulled straight up. Do not loop it from under the needle side, or if you slip you'll break the needle.

3. Carefully remove the 3 cluster overlays shown here. These are held on with thermal bonding or adhesive and you must use the thin knife to carefully sever the overlays from the gauge assembly. Do not rush this or you will end up with overlays that won't lay flat when you're done without a lot of work. You do not need to remove the needle stops from the gauges. These are small plastic pins that some of the gauge needles rest against when they are at "zero".

4. Scrape off the old color from the back of the overlay. Below left shows the overlay before any work was done to it. The choice of a tool to do this is up to you. Box cutters, x-acto knives, pocket knives and screwdrivers have all been used. My favorite is a small screwdriver with an 1/8" tip, and I file the end flat so the corners are square and sharp. I just hold the screwdriver perpendicular to a file and rub it back and forth a couple of times to flatten the tip and square the edges. The overlays are very tough, but be careful if you use a sharp tool not to slip and poke through the overlay (or you). Below right shows a small area completely cleaned of tint. You want to clear off everything that you want to retint. I retinted all warning indicators but the theft indicator to yellow, and left the high beam indicator blue on mine. You can't change the theft indicator color without replacing the red LED it uses. The rest are bulbs and you can change the color. Decide on a color scheme before you start scraping so you know what you're going to remove. If you have an automatic, you can also pop out the thin plastic overlay on the gear indicator and scrape and paint it as well. The gear indicator overlay piece is very thin, so use more care. It is held on by adhesive on the ends, and you should push it out carefully from the back, from as close to the end as you can. Be careful not to dent, crimp or puncture it.

5. Paint on the glass paint. Once you're done scraping, you should paint on your new colors. Below left shows me painting a small area using the applicator that came with the kit. This was a test and I scraped the rest completely off before painting it and did not do it an area at a time. An even layer should be spread and it should extend beyond the area light will show through a little ways. As the paint dries, the center sometimes dips with shrinkage, and the edges thin out. You may need to touch up an area. Below right shows all 3 overlays after painting. The C-shaped clear areas under where the needles go need the grey paint on some of them removed. Then paint the C-shaped areas with the color you want the needle to be when it's lit.

5A. Alternative color method: use red or yellow tailight repair tape and cut pieces to cover the scraped areas. Use 2 or 3 layers and don't put seams in the tape over top of one another. This is the original method used for the modification, before we discovered the glass paint. The picture to the right shows my first red tape overlays (done by $tone02/Brent) and the blue tinting I did with a permanent blue marker. I was unhappy with the blue. Also, all the warning indicators were made red and they didn't catch my attention on a red dash, so I went with the multi-color scheme which required a different method and that's why I went searching for paint that could work.

6. Evalute the coverage. When you're done painting, hold your overlay up to a lamp and check very carefully that the painting is even and that everything is covered. The photo to the right shows my main overlay held up to the light.

7. Optional things to do: I found some "hot spots" on the gauges that were MUCH brighter than average. I tried to fix this by painting on the clear plastic gauge body. I found when I put it back together that I'd over done it and also impaired light reflection down the gauges. Note this photo. If you wish to use the white paint to diminsh the "hot spots" only paint it at the top of the "lamp wells" and don't paint within the red rectangle areas shown here. I had to go back and remove the paint in the rectangle area because it caused the needles to dim. You could also just paint the white paint on the back of the overlay in the "hot" areas after your main color dries.

8. The picture to the right shows the main overlay on the gauge body with the lamps hooked up to power in my workshop. This is a pain in the butt so don't do it. I needed to do it to figure out how it would look the first time I did it. Below left shows the gauges in the vehicle and below right takes a closer look at the heater control panel, which can also be modified.

9. Reassemble the overlays to the gauges. Make the hole for the needle line up as well as possible with the hole in the gauge body. This is a necessary step to ensure that the needles don't "stick" when we're all done. Stick the overlays to the gauge using double sided tape. Use tiny pieces in areas where light does not need to shine though. This is only to hold them until the gauges are fully reassembled when they will be clamped firmly in place. DO NOT reassemble the clear dash window and bezel yet.

10. Mount the gauge pod in the dashboard after reconnecting the 3 harness connections and putting the transmission indicator in if you have an automatic. Do not put the reset of the dash on. Tuck the hood release up under the dash somewhere so it's not in the way. Now start the truck and let it idle until it's fully warmed up. Replace all needles but the speedometer pointing as they were before you removed them. Exact calibration is not an issue on ANY of these gauges, so don't be too concerned. NOTE: press the needles down, but not as far as they go. They need a little clearance between them and the overlays so that expansion/contraction does not cause them to stick. Pushing them on too far is the other thing that causes "sticky needles".

11. Speedo recalibration. This is the toughest thing to get right. I have a GPS that shows my speed, so I just went out on the highway, drove at a constant speed (set the cruise control if you have it), and put the needle on at the speed the GPS read. If you don't have a GPS, have a friend drive at a constant speed you pre-arrange, and sync your speed to theirs and stick the needle on. It's a little tricky pushing it on while driving and getting it right. Regardless of which method, just push it barely on and then let go to see if you hit it right. Pull off and repeat until you get it right. It's very easy to put a little "twist" on it as you put it back on and not hit it right. Sometimes it takes a few tries, but you'll get it. Don't try to push it fully down until you get back to finish reassembly.

12. Get home, shut down, and reassemble EVERYTHING. Enjoy your new dashboard, we do!

Other color mods

You can do the heater controls also. You might want to do this while you're doing the main dash, but you can do it later.

1. Remove the center console. It's easier if you take all the cables off the power ports, switches, and radio when you get the console out.

2. Remove the knobs from the heater controls, they just pull straight out.

3. Remove the front panel of the heater controls. It just snaps on. The heater unit presents as two pieces, one black (the panel face) and one white (the panel body). To remove the panel from the body, carefully pry the 4 black locking tabs up, one at a time, while putting outward pressure on the panel face. Do the top tabs, and when they are all free, pivot the face out and down and it will come off. You will have 3 pieces off when you're done: The panel face, a thin green and white sheet, and a clear plastic "light pipe" piece that distributes the light. We will modify the thin sheet and the panel face and do nothing to the clear plastic piece. Note which way both the thin sheet and clear plastic will go back in.

4. Cut the thin green and white plastic sheet to remove the parts that sit behind the fan switch, and heat mode switch. Keep the piece from the center that goes behind the temperature control because we will reuse it.

5. Use the glass paint to carefully paint on the back of the heater panel face, through the holes in the back. Plan your color scheme, and build the paint up carefully because it's hard to remove if you mess it up. If you build the paint up out to the edges of the hole, it will creep up the edge of the hole and make the middle get thin. It's better to put on several careful coats using a small paint brush or applicator much smaller than the holes.

6. When each coat is dry, hold it up to light to evalutate the result, reapply paint as necessary.

7. When you are satisfied, place the thin plastic overlay, and the light pipe in the panel face and snap it carefully back in place, engaging the bottom first, and then snapping in the top.

8. In my pictures, I had not yet done the knobs and Brent ($tone02) figured that out. Mine light blue now. Take out the knobs, place them face up, and press out the small clear inserts inside them with a thin screwdriver, nail or whatever.

9. Use 1000 grit sandpaper to remove the layer of green and white paint on the top of the clear piece. Really fine sandpaper takes the thin layer off fairly quickly, but doesn't mar the plastic much or remove excess material.

10. Paint the top of the clear piece with your color choice for the knob pointer. When it's mostly dry you can paint white paint over that to retain a "stock" look by day, but show your color choice by night. Thin uniform coats are called for here because if you use too much, they'll be too dim. These you can always sand off and start again.

11. When fully dry, snap them back into the knobs, and replace the knobs.

12. Reassemble the center console. Don't forget to hook up all the wires INCLUDING the radio's antenna wire -- that's the one I forget for some reason. The last photo above shows mine before I changed the knobs.