kiker14

iTrader: (1)

hey guys, I'm not gonna bother with the "before" pictuers as you all know what the "before" looks like, and if you are dieing to see some of my progress, you can just click on the link for my cardomain site in my sig. That being said, I spent the last two days relaxing, and installing the e-bay euro gauges. I'm VERY pleased with them, my only complaint is the needles are a bit hard to read, but I will eventually get higher power bulbes to put in behind them. Overall this was a pretty easy job, it was just time consuming. Enjoy :-)

oh, and the stupid thing is all pre-wired so i couldn't put the dimmer exactly where I wanted it. no biggy.

thricerx7

looks sweet. my cluster goes only to 130 though so those wouldn't work.

RotorMotorDriver

iTrader: (1)

Nice! I personally dont like the white circle in the middle when illuminated, I plan on getting some that doesnt have those, but still looks AWESOME!! Good job!!

~T.J.

clean85owner

Meh.

Not a big fan of white faced euro gauges...

I'm glad you like them, though!

CarlRx7

has anyone seen the red - whiteface gauges. car is red. aux gauges are red too. i dont think the blue would look to good on my car.

carl.

Bolox

www.etronicauto.com

is where i got my yellow ones from

DAVID GRIMES

Cool. They do custom ( I got a new cluster screened to 160 ). They also have red ( I gotta get rid of all that fargin dim *** orange ). Thanks for the link.

Tell me: How bright ? How much ?

Bolox

hmm... ive only seen mine in daylight so far (read https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation-specific-1979-1985-18/instrument-cluster-voltage-q-371830/ ) but i got mine for $200 shipped across the country, so about $170ish for the guages.
its a bitch rich but they've got a 6 month waranty, and the people were really nice when i spoke to them, so i dont mind spending a bit more

(it was an end of uni pressy for me )

hondah8er

I dont know about those...i like the stock orange on black setup much better.

RotorMotorDriver

iTrader: (1)

I agree, I love the way all your gauges look in the dark on your CarDomain site. Thats what I will be doing with my -SE, only I will have the triple pod

~T.J.

DAVID GRIMES

I second that ! Lookin' good, my man !

Therotaryrocket85

I like them too, they look like the ones on ebay im about to buy, seeing yours helped me make up my mind..... How hard are they to install?

kiker14

iTrader: (1)

not too hard, i have a few pointers for you though... guess i might as well do it publicly for other people to see too.

here's a kinda step by step...

1. unplug negative side of the battery
2. take horn cover off
3. use 22mm (i think) socket and extention to take off steering wheel nut
4. take off control cluster (turn signal/wipers) cover, should be 4 or 5 screws from underneath, and the top clips into the bottom, so press on the top half to unhinge it from the bottom half, not vice versa or you will break something.
5. unlike what it says in the FSM (which you should download and print out the page that says how to get to the gauges) you do NOT need to take off the control cluster, so don't bother, it's just a waste of time.
then, go to http://home.bak.rr.com/rescobedojr/gauges_pg_01.html and follow those instructions.

then, when you are looking for power, if you are looking at your cluster, there will be a clip with six wires going into the lower left hand side of the cluster (i think the clip is white). use your multimeter to find the one that has power when the lights are on. for mine, if you are looking at the clip from the back (wires going INTO side) then it is the absolute lower left one for a power source. tap into this however you know how (i cut and spliced and used electrical tape to cover up) and then ground it anywhere you can (i couldn't find a wire to ground it to, so I just used a screw that is to the right of the pannel that is directly under the steering wheel). also, wiring is kinda a bitch, i dropped the dimmer behind the dash (once it was out, obviously) and let the relay sit back behind the dash. There is enough wire to bring the dimmer to the front, as you can see in my first picture, the dimmer is screwed into a spot to the lower left of my steering wheel. I used self-tapping screws.

another thing that isn't really talked about much is physically getting the gauges out of the dash. There are a total of 5 things to unplug before you get the gauges out. You just have to feel around for the thickest thing going back there first, it is the speedo cable, and goes into the speedometer (if you are feeling around, you should be feeling to the right of the steering wheel and up pretty high on the gauge pod). Then, you can get a small power wire (two prongs) on the upper right hand side. just wiggle it off left to right. Once you get these two things off, you should be able to angle the pod down, and pull the right hand side towards you to give you front access to the other three things, two large round connectors where you press down in the middle of it on the piece that comes out of them to get them off, and one more small power wire. you can't miss these things, two large circles (one black one white, i believe) and one small two prong wire connector, all of these are on the left side of the pod if you are looking at it from the front, so, here is a little diagram if you are looking at it FROM THE FRONT...

-- O O * --

power wire, circle connector, circle connector, speedo cable, power wire

everything else is relatively straightforward, if you have questions, ask them here or send me a PM.

~Andrew

Therotaryrocket85

Thanks for that, very in-depth. I was going to order my guages this afternoon off of one of the buy it nows on ebay so when it gets in ill give her a try. Thanks a bunch! Karson

85rotarypower

One thing that should be mentioned about installation, be VERY careful when removing the needles if you need to. I made some custom white face gauges for my car and when removing the tach needle, I ended up wrecking the tach. Had to buy a new gauge cluster. But the bottom line is to be VERY, VERY careful when removing your indicator needles.

BTW, IMHO, the stock gauges look lots better than white face. They fit the car much better. When I installed mine, they were great, but got old real fast and after a while seemed out of place in my car. I like the old skool look anyway, thats why I went for a chrome 4 spoke grant steering wheel, not the ricer type like others go for.

hornbm

you dont need to remove the needles to instal these gauges. they are simily gauge overlays and just slip over the needles

kiker14

iTrader: (1)

yes, removing the needles is something you need to be careful with... what i personally did was get a screwdriver, put it under the nedle, and give it a little twist to pop it up a little bit, then i did that all around the needle until it easily came off.

as far as stock gauges looking better than white face, if you like the "old school" look, then yeah, definitely go with black. I however, am "moderniznig" (I don't think it's rice if it's with taste) my car, and I think white looks really cool, esp. at night with them glowing.


I didn't even bother trying to do this w/out removing the needles. I think that if you are careful (which i pretty much always am) then it is much easier this way. i think you also would have to bend the gauge plates in a rather extreme fashion both to take off the old and to put on the new ones, which I wouldn't feel comfortable doing, esp because you would have to bend them AGAINST the needle, which i feel like would defeat the purpose of leaving the needle on for "safety" reasons anyway...

just my $.02