Indiglo Gauge Project

[Jake]

I decided to get a set of Blue Indiglo Gauges from Panther and install them. I also decided to make an INSTALL FAQ for everyone because there really REALLY needs to be one.

First, I designed these gauge faces:
Argh, trying to figure out how to resize pics...

[SixSick6]

So, wheres the rest of it?

[Jake]

Okay here is part 1.
How to install Panther's Indiglo Gauge kit.

First, disconnect your speedo cable from under the hood:


Then remove the dash cover. THere are 3 screws up under the lip connecting it to the top of the dash and then one hidden behind the a/c vent cover on the right side. The vent cover pops off.




Pull the cover off gently.
Then you will see 4 screws holding in the gauge pod.
Unscrew those then pull the gauge pod forward just enough to expose the wiring behind. There are 3 connectors to unclip and the speedo cable. The speedo cable has a clip that you squeeze that will allow it to release.
You should be able to feel it.


You should now have the gauge pod out.
Remove the front cover. THere are screws on the top and bottom and 2 clips that hold the plastic front cover on. Be careful not to break the clips.

To take your old faces off, you need to remove the tach and speedo needles. Do this CAREFULLY and ALSO pay attention to where they are. You will note that on the stock faces, there are dots where the needles point to at 0. If they arent on your new gauges, transfer them over. They cant be seen with the plastic bezel in place.


Use a FORK to gently pry the needles off. BE CAREFUL when removing the fuel and temp gauge plates and needles. There are little pieces that will just fall out if you arent careful. THey have little springs on them which you may have to put back in:


If your gauges came untrimmed, you will need to trim them.
You will note around the edges of the indiglo material alternating black and white areas.

These are the 2 separate areas that you want to connect your wires to. These are the terminals.
You must make SURE when trimming your gauges that you leave a little bit of the black and a little bit of the white protruding out from the gauges where it will be covered by the bezel. Note where I trimmed mine. On the speedo and tach, trim them so the terminals are on the left or right. On the fuel and temp, leave the terminals on the top. This is pretty much the only places to leave terminals protruding that won't get in the way of the edge of the pod. You can tape off and tuck the protruding terminals underneath the adjacent gauge faces after you have crimped and covered the wires.




Lay out the gauge faces and determine how much wire you will need. I believe I used 22 gauge solid copper wire. It doesn't need to be very thick if its solid and not stranded. I used the solid so the wiring would hold its shape in the pod as I bent it. Stranded would be too flimsy and possibly work its way op top of the gauge faces after hitting some bumps.

Even though according to the EL (electroluminescent) manufacturer, you can wire the 4 faces in series (pos to neg to pos to neg) OR in parallel (all positives together and all negative together) it is important is to wire up the gauges IN PARALLEL and NOT in series. If you wire them in series, the larger gauges will be dimmer than the smaller gauges. This is because of the resistance difference. I first tried them in series and that is what happend. If ALL your faces where the same size, or you were using separate inverters on each face, then this wouldn't be an issue.

So, you are going to FIRST, solder a wire to one of the crimp pins supplied with the kit. DO NOT crimp the pin into the EL material and then try to solder a wire onto it. You will melt the material. Then you will crimp the pine and wire assembly into the terminal section. Note that the crimp pins go all the way thru the material BUT do not let the crimp pin go outside the terminal area. It should either be in an ALL BLACK or an ALL WHITE area. See the picture above. If you don't get the pin in snugly, you can pull it off and recrimp it. Use pliers to first push the crimp pin thru the material then turn the face over and bend the teeth down so the pin is anchored into the material.

Once you have 4 positive and 4 negative wires crimped on to all 4 of the gauges, solder all 4 positives together then all 4 negatives together.



You can go ahead and solder the positive and negative wires from the rectifier to the bundle as well.
Then tape everything up: the 2 bundles of 5 wires soldered together, and carefully cover the areas on the gauge faces where you crimped the pins on.




At this point you should test the gauges to make sure they all light up and none of them are loose.
Lay the gauge faces on a board and tape them down temporarily so they don't move around. Take the assembly out to your car and plug the recitifier into your cigaratte lighter. The rectifiers that come with the kit usually have a cigarette lighter connector. OR if you have a 12 volt power source, like a wall wart power supply from a modem or some other household device that puts out at least 300ma, you should be able to rig something up to test. Turn on the little switch and make sure that all gauges illuminate and they are the same intensity. You will hear a buzzing. This is the rectifier working. You won't really notice it when it is installed behind the gauge pod in your car.

Now to install the faces. If yours come without holes cut for the miles , the needles and the screw holes, you will need to cut holes. Use a sharp exacto blade to poke the holes and cut out the rectanges for the odometer and trip gauge. It is thick material with multiple layers. Practice on a piece of the material you trimmed off first. Try cutting and removing 1 layer at a time. DO NOT cut the screw holes to big or you will have to use a washer to hold the faces on.

An important note about the tach gauge is that the stock gauge has some standoffs on the back, which arent on the new faces. You will need to MAKE some. I made some by snipping off about 1/8th of an inch from the end of a PAPERMATE pen (with the ink cartridge removed of course, and just laying them on top of the areas where the holes are, to get the right depth:



Tuck the wiring behind the faces in the pod and then carefully tuck the protruding terminal edges under the faces and screw the faces in.



You don't need to screw the down tightly as this is not rigid plastic like the stock face plates.



Test fit the black bezel over the gauge faces to make sure that there are no wires or tape showing. Take the bezel back off and push the needles back on making sure that they point to the dots that you transferred to them from the stock gauges. For the speedo and tach, the needles will point to 0, but the fuel and temp needles are BELOW the lowest setting, and this is why there are dots to point the needles to.
You may have to adjust the needles around later on if you get inaccurate readings.


If you also got an optional replacement idiot light strip, trim that and put it in the gauge pod. Then put the bezel back on. The pod should now look like this:



Stay tuned for the next posting where I show where to solder up and put the rectifiler.

[Jake]

Installing Panther's Indiglo Gauge kit Part 2.

The rectifier that Panther sends has a cigarette lighter connector on it so you could just use that and plug it into your cigarette lighter connection, but if you want to make the gauges turn on and off with the light switch, you can connect the power input leads to the gauge pod itself. This would also allow you to hide the rectifier behind the gauge pod.

Flip the pod over after you have installed the new faces and screwed the cover back on.
Locate 2 of the lines that go to one of the lights on the back of the pod. You will solder the rectifier's input leads to these lines.
It doesn't matter which two as long as they are opposing, positive and negative. Scrape off the protective coating with a kinfe making sure not to cut all the way thru the line. Then solder the wires to each of the lines.


Tape the rectifier to the back of the gauge pod. OR you can use a hot glue gun.



THere is a small on/off switch that is wired in with the rectifier. You can either cut this off and wire the two wires together to make it so the rectifier is always on any time you turn on your lights, OR you can leave the switch on so that you can turn the Indiglo on and off. I chose to leave the switch on, because sometimes the gauges are a little bright at night. Your face will GLOW to others around you in traffic. I left the switch dangling out and when I went to reinstall the pod, i pulled the switch out and to the left.



Then put the dash cover back on, leaving the switch just barely protruding from the left of the pod.



Then reinstall the gauge pod. The rectifier should not interfere with any of the connectors or the speedo cable if you tape or glue it where I did. Here is what it looks like in the daytime.



Here is what you should see at night with the switch on.



Here is what mine look like with my glowshift gauges installed in the pillar pods.
I was considering making the pillar gauges Indiglo but there is very little room for the EL material to protrude to get pins crimped on.
I need to research it more to find EL material that perhaps has terminals in the back/middle to do those.



I'd like to thank Panther for working with me to help make my design changes. It was my idea to put the 4ws and my name on the gauges. I also chose the Star Trek looking font. Note the "ROCKET FUEL ONLY" warning rather than Unleaded Fuel Only, hehe...

Good luck everyone.

[Panther37]

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