Painting dial suround

[jason phillips]

I would like to know if any one out there in LS1 land has painted the cluster suround of the display on the dash. I have seen plenty of people change the face colour of the gauges but I have not seen any one paint the actual suround bit. I saw that Blown put a chrome one on the monaro in the SC mag. I thought that a nice paint job on there would look great. I dont mind that light grey HSV faves but a bit of air brush work around them would set it of nice. Any advice or photos would be geatly appreciated.

Cheers

[jason phillips]

I gather from the lack of reply taht no one here has tried this. I might have to give it a go.

[Deserthead]

I just changed the face of my dash last weekend.
I changed all my interior lights to blue. Looks heaps better
than dull green i might add.
Anyway. . . . The surround you speak of does indeed come out quite easily.
just take out the whole instrument cluster, undo the clips holding it together and viola, its out. I was toyin with the idea of painting it too.
Wasn't sure of the colour though, so i didn't.
Seen a web site though that sells em already done, bit expensive though.
any how, if you get stuck let me no, i'll try n help. :D

[wawoo]

I just changed the face of my dash last weekend.
I changed all my interior lights to blue. Looks heaps better
than dull green i might add.

Any walkthroughs/sites that one could follow for this procedure? For a VZ would be nice
:)

I did do a search on this forum and came across a thread where someone had done this, but for an earlier model, and the links to the pics aren't working anymore so it wasn't a lot of help. I'd love to do mine if it is not too tricky.

Andrew

[Rt!]

the surround can be painted.. its easy

[Deserthead]

Hey Andrew,

I pretty much winged it, being the first time i've ever done it before.
BUT, its not too hard to do. I basically replaced all the green lights with blue LED's. :D Probly the hardest bit for my car was the heater controls, the plastic bit that lights up has a green coating on it, so we had to scratch it all off. :bash:
The dash face also has the same thing, so i bought a new one, that lights up Blue at night. I might start up a new thread on what i did and see if i can get a few piccies on there also. :)
But overall its not that bad a job if you dont mind dickin around for a bit.

Cheers, Keegan

[bobg]

I would like to know if any one out there in LS1 land has painted the cluster suround of the display on the dash. I have seen plenty of people change the face colour of the gauges but I have not seen any one paint the actual suround bit. I saw that Blown put a chrome one on the monaro in the SC mag. I thought that a nice paint job on there would look great. I dont mind that light grey HSV faves but a bit of air brush work around them would set it of nice. Any advice or photos would be geatly appreciated.

Cheers
I have my gauge surrounds painted body colour. Makes a nice change to dark grey. Also changed the needles from the dull red of HSV to a brighter red/orange to give more contrast with the grey facia and painted the needle centres body colour as well.

Photos don't do it justice cause of the reflections when photographing it out of the car.
http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL930/1749213/3363733/95359725.jpg

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL930/1749213/3363733/95359712.jpg

Regards

Bob G

[wawoo]

Keegan,

A little help always goes a long way, especially if there are any little surpises. I have done something similar before to another car, so am confident in doing another one - but know there can be suprises and it is better to be prepared than be half way through the job and have to stop to go get parts.

Did you not have to use a resisistor with the new LED's?

Andrew

[Deserthead]

Andrew,

Im not to sure how the VZ's go, but mines a VX 11. So mine had mostly globes in it. I used the LEDs. I had to use a 560 Ohm resistor in series with it. Not to hard to do. I did see while i was looking, was 12V LED's. From memory they were almost $7 for a pair, only down side is they are big, and not as easily manipulated in to difficult postions.
I also found that if you file the tops of them flat you won't get hotspots when they shine through. I was looking through this forum and www.streetcommodores.com.au for it already being done, found a few, but i found a picture of a VY/VZ dash cluster pulled apart, and from what it looked like it had those tiny little square/rectanle LEDs in em, so i imagine they'd already have the resistors in em.
I only ended up doin my buttons, windows, traction, spoties, lights, and heater controls, the dash itself i bought a new dash face, with back lite blue.
As for surprises, I can't think of anything that really stumped me, except for my rear window buttons, everytime, i put a new resistor and LED in it, it'd work till you opened n closed the window, then it'd go out and not work anymore. We came up with it was gettin too much current through it, but then I'd work on a battery. . . . Still got us stumped!!! Besides that, buy a few spares just in case, and if you can access another car, pull yours apart, see how many you need, then go and get the gear. That was my mistake, I didnt buy enough the first time, so I pulled the car apart about 3 times in all. Got it down to a fine art though! Yeh, it'll just save you time dickin around. Also if you have a gregories manual or similar, may help in pulling it apart for the first time.
I hope all this helps ya, I'll try n get some photos of mine finshed n get em up!

Cheers Keegan.

[jason phillips]

Thanks for the replies that's great. Good job for the week end. :D

[wawoo]

Agreed, thanks for the info. I might give it a crack this weekend as well. :D

[LSX-438]

Seen a web site though that sells em already done, bit expensive though.

Hi Deserthead, can you point me to this website?

[VX2VESS]

hees an old thread from search on leds

http://www.ls1.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=13827&highlight=blue+leds

[Deserthead]

Forrestd,

The web site is www.custom-house.com.au like i said pricey but good! They expr4ess post everything out to you, so you should get it the next day or so. :D
I had a look at the old thread vt2vx posted, sounds similar to what i did, but i changed all the bulbs to blue LEDs and just put the new dash face on. Was much easier than dickin round with the old one!
Hope this helps ya! :)

Cheers, Keegan.