reverse glow gauges
 

ok ive seen so many pics of the reverse glow gauges for the svx and i want them so baddddd. they look so good at night and i just have to have them. ive seen it being sold on ebay for about 40 dollars and 60 dollars. i have bought alot of things on ebay before but when i buy the gauges im afraid to put them in myself because i dont want to mess anything up. i dont know if a regular mechanic would do it so im not sure what i should do. advice on this matter would be great!

I bought mine on ebay for about $30. The business is Makoto Auto Trends, I believe (they also have a normal web store).

The installation is actually quite simple. Seraph used to have a website with detailed instructions on how to remove the gauges. I think the site is down. Buy yourself a Chilton's manual for the SVX if you haven't already. They have an exploded diagram for the dash, as well as instructions for it's removal.

Watered down, you remove the three screws above the steering wheel. Pop out the small instrument buttons (hazard, cruise, etc). Unscrew the screws behind them. Remove the front dash panel. The rest of the screws are fairly obviously placed.

The gauges come with an external power supply. You have to wire the connections somewhere. You could simply place them under the fuse for the headlights, so that they only come on with the lights. I wired mine to the parking light switch. There are a number of wires back there. If you have a current tester, you should use it to test which wires are live. I think they are black and red... Let me know if you need more help, or can't find it elsewhere.

Reverse Gauges

yea it sounds really complicated to me thats why i didnt want to fool around with it. i know im not good with wiring anything. if i take it to a regular mechanic do you think he would do it for me? better yet there is a store here called audio visions and they do all the special work to a car. they handle cd players and speakers and tinting windows and fog lights and all this other spcialized stuff. hopefully if i take it to them they wont charge me alot of money to do it. what do you think i should do?

A place like that should be able to do it for fairly cheap. I swear to you that the only difficult part is the wiring. All the wires come with the power supply, and it fits nicely behind the dash. Just sort of sits there, as a matter of fact. If you don't feel confident adding end-terminals or even going so far as soldering, then all you must do is remove the fuse for the headlights, set the wires for the power supply in its place, and stick the fuse back in. Done deal.

IMHO, it's best to do it yourself. It sounds intimidating and complicated in explanation, but is simple in practice. I'm even willing to give you detailed instructions or talk you through it over the phone. PM me if you want.

But yes, that Audio Visions place sounds like the company to go for. A "normal" mechanic probably won't do it, and a body shop is still iffy. A shop that handles mostly aftermarket what-not is what you need.

yea i would like to do it myself so i can be like the rest of you and be cool :D .....i have done a few things on the car myself but the wiring is the only thing that will confuse me because i dont know anything about fuses or where any of that stuff is...and im worried that when i take out the dash that i would be able to put it back haha.....my friend has a 2001 honda civic and he put his gauges in by himself and now his RPM needle jumps and gets stuck.....not that i would ever compare a civic to a SVX but you catch what im trying to say......that audio visions place is good but the only thing is that they might try and jip me....i brought my car there in december so they could look at my cd player because when i had the radio on it made this loud whining noise when i accelrated.....all they did was take the radio out and tell me it was worn out and i need a new one and they charged me 130 bucks for 2 hrs of labor....and they didnt even do anything....and what kind of tools will i need if i am going to do this myself?....i know i need a screwdriver or a power drill.....if i am going to do this myself then you would need to give me detailed instructions or i would have to call you haha

wow, that more $ per hour than the local Ferrari dealer (no joke!)
that whining while accelerating sounds like you just needed a noise filter because that sounds like alternator noise(less than $20). that place seems shady.

try it yourself - you'll get help here. deruvian has even offered phone support. :)

This thread belongs in the mod forum. Please post in the correct forums.

That place does sound kind of shady. I've grown into the habit of watching mechanics for at least most of the time. Unless it's a multi-day job, of course. Something like this should only take an hour at most, and I'd stick around to watch them. If for some reason they get upset with you watching, tell them that it's your car and you're just curious about how to do things with it. If they don't like that, they can put **** back together free of charge and expect you to not come back. I haven't had any complaints from mechanics, though.

If you wanna try it yourself, PM me. I'll walk you through it one way or the other. :)

BTW - I'm planning on taking apart my dash to get to my temp gauge. It's broken, so I need to take the dash apart, remove the gauge, put it back together, drive to a Radioshack, take it apart again to reinstall, and then put it all back once again! I'm planning on doing it really soon, maybe this weekend. That'll freshen my memory on it for sure.

when i get the gauges i will definitley message you guys and thanks so much for the help...what would i do with out my SVX crew?!

It's easy to do yourself.......there's howtos and this forum where you'll get an answer fast.

If you don't want to do them yourself you can always have a speed shop do them for you ....I know my shop would charge $50........BUT they probably wouldn't know how to remove the black trim around the cluster and might break it because it unscrews unlike most vehicles.