[gsodonis]

I installed my white face gauges last night - with a couple of embellishments:
1. the needle centers are painted flat white
2. the guage hold down screw heads are painted white
3. the surrounds (rings) around each gauge are painted silver
4. the two upper guages (door ajar on the right and trunk lid ajar on the left) are color matched to the rest of the white faces with blue outlines (instead of black)
5. the center gear position indicator is blacked out (not needed with a 5-speed)
6. all white incandescent bulbs replaced with bright white LED's
7. the two bulbs that 'wash' over the front of the guage faces were replaced with bright blue LED's
8. the green tinted plastic pieces that made the odometer numbers appear green were removed to allow the numbers to look white instead.

I experimented with different colors for the odometer numbers
- blue - numbers looked good and complemented the guages, but the needles were dark and not red and I wanted red needles.
- red - numbers were VERY red and needles looked good, but some red leaked out across the faces and made the guages look funny.
- white - makes the numbers POP and my favorite effect - that's what ended up using.

The biggest change was replacing the top two bulbs with two blue LED's. The give the entire guage FACE a blue color and the EL reverse numbers and marks are still clearly visible. The attached pic doesn't portray the look exactly - the camera makes the guages look a bit brighter than they really are - but IMHO, I love the blue faces. I also experimented with different front face lighting - red, UV, white & blue and stuck with blue. The best part is that I can change the color as often as I want.

You can achieve any color guage face you wish, as long as a 74 type LED bulb comes in that color. If you have white faced guages, you can make the entire faces glow red, green, yellow, blue, orange and even white at night. The possibilities are almost endless.

I'll take better pictures of the daytime look later today.