reverse gauges
 

TO ANYBODY OUT THERE!
HOW HARD IS TO INSTALL THE REVERSE GLO GAUGES IN THE SVX :confused:
I CAN GET THEM ON EBAY, BUT WITH 2 KIDS AND WORKING FROM HOME TIME IS AN ISSUE :o
I LIKE EASY PROJECTS :) ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED! THANKS ;)

the gauges are easy. just pull out the dash, screws hidden behind switches for hazard,alarm,etc. and along the underside edge of the dash.once you get off the trim and so on just take off the needles and remove the 2 screws in each gauge and place the gauge faces over the originals and replace the screws and needles. resetting the gauge needles is the hard part. for temp i just let the car run till it was warmed up and placed the gauge where i knew it should be. i just kinda remembered where the gas gauge was and placed that needle at the same time as the temp. for tach i set it just a little behind the stop point and then bent it over the stop to it's resting(0) position.it was right and shifts right at 6500 so i know it's right. the speedo i just followed someone and placed the needle while in cruise control behind them. it's set dead on according to police speed checks on the highway.find a wire in the harness to your security,fog,cruise switches that has power only when the parkingand headlghts are on and tap in there for power. i used one of the bolts holding up the metal panel under the steering column for a ground. they work great and look pretty cool.you'll need to remove the panel under the column too. the bolts are hidden behind the coin holder and the haeted mirror switch. but that about sums it up. not very hard really once your looking at it. Good luck.

I installed mine without removing the needles. Its not that hard to install them.

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how did you do that?!

You just slide the overlays around and over the needles. I did them the same way on my impreza and it worked fine.

why didn't i do that?!:(

Did you have any problems with the needles? :confused:

no no probs, it just took longer is all.:)

I just installed reverse glow gauges today. I think it took me about 3 or 4 hours. It was harder than I thought. I removed the suede panel and metal panel behind it below the steering column. disconnected wiring harnesses for the power mirror, parking light, fog, defoster, and hazard clusters. You have to remove the button clusters to get to the screws hidden behind them in order to remove the suede panel and trim panel around cluster. once I got all trim panels and clusters removed. I think there was 6 screws holding the instrument cluster in. I was surprised how easy it was to remove the instrument cluster. No wiring harness to worry about. the whole instrument cluster just plugs in. There is a couple screws on the backside of the cluster that will need to be removed to get the trim around the gauges off. I learned this after breaking one. I removed the 2 tiny screws for each gauge and tried sliding the new gauges over the needles. The gauges over the tach and speedo needles was tricky. My first attempt I couldn't get them over the needle and decided to try to pull the needle off. I tried pulling the tack and speedo needles off but they wouldn't come off and I was afraid I would break it. So I tried sliding them again and was able to force them over. I spliced the power wire into a red wire with white stripe coming off the parking light button. The negative wire went to a bolt on the steering column support. The guages light up whenever I turn on my parking or headlights. Haven't been able to fire the car up yet to see if my needles work yet.

Thanks for all your replies :)

what does it look like?

any pics?

thanks

here's what mine look like.

I have the gauges in my car too, but they do not light up. Previous owner (Huck) may have installed them but he never got them to light up. I actually think they were installed when he bought the car but, since the factory lighting still shines through the faces and renders them dim but visible, he was not concerned enough to trace the cause. I hope the transformer pack for the glow is not shot and that it's just the wiring. It is a nice set with a little switch cluster to dim the glow effect and change colors from blue to green. The only thing I can think of is that the wires (positive & negative) are connected wrong. They are connected to the proper wire in the parking light switch but it may be that the ground wire is connected instead of the positive wire. Since the wiring is buried where I am unable to reach easily, I have not had time to check but it is on my list of things to do.

Johnny

yes mine have the switch too to switch colors and brightness. definitely check the wiring as soon as you can cause they are so sweet looking when they work. good luck

im about to install mine, my only concern is powering them to the parking light power. is there a reccomended way to do this