thanks chromius, my cluster looks PROPER!

everlast · 02-23-2008, 01:28 AM

I tinted the info display, check light, signals and high beam spots. It looks great, and the lights still light up fine. You can 'just' make out the writing underneath the tint. I imagine that in the car you won't see it at all.

Edit: the tint is really glossy and looks wicked, but I couldn't really get a good pic of that because I have shaky hands, lol.

Thanks Adam!

FuryriderX · 02-23-2008, 08:38 AM

looks great! i like the beer in the background, too

what did you use for the tint?

everlast · 02-23-2008, 10:52 AM

Electrostatic tint, cut to fit with a modeling knife. The small parts were easy, though the info display took a few tries. I succeeded by cutting a long strip that hangs out past the ends. Once the cover piece was snapped in place, I could pull the tint and straighten it.

NOTORIOUS VR · 02-23-2008, 11:06 AM

that looks great! very nice job! I'm a big fan of modding clusters... \

here's mine, nothing too special white LED backlighting and a mix of needles from a different cluster:

I'm actually gonna redo it again with a set of needles from a newer Golf/Jetta.

Here's a real custom cluster I made for my friends VR6 turbo Passat Wagon:
This one is really custom, I swapped the tach and speedo positions (speedo used to be in the middle), and made custom faces myself.

everlast · 02-23-2008, 11:51 AM

Those are pretty awesome. I was going to do red needles (I had some spares thanks to chromius) but found that the red just wasn't a smooth enough color. I also attempted to black out any unnecessary writing, like 1/min x 1000, etc, but it was still visible and looked half-assed, so I think I'm done.

I just *may* try one more thing today that is a little drastic. I'll post pics.

chromius · 02-23-2008, 03:50 PM

No problemo dude. Glad it turned out, looks really good.

everlast · 02-23-2008, 04:17 PM

I managed to cut a piece of tint for the entire plastic shield and put it on the spare piece. It looks totally bad-ass, but the plastic has compound curves which would make it very hard for the tint to stay in place. It would be a cinch with some good quality automotive tint. It would also need custom lighting, but dayum would it ever look effen cool.

Actually, imagine some of those gauges that guys are using on r3v (i forget their name, but they light up and cycle through their range on powerup, and they're amber to boot) behind a tinted shield. OMFG that would be sex.

Anyway, cluster is all installed in the car and it looks great. Hopefully the rings will stay in place too.

craz azn · 02-23-2008, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NOTORIOUS VR

Here's a real custom cluster I made for my friends VR6 turbo Passat Wagon:
This one is really custom, I swapped the tach and speedo positions (speedo used to be in the middle), and made custom faces myself.

That cluster is sick. Its possible on the Vdubs to just switch the guts around?? And did you print it on vinyl or something to get the gauge face/numbers/lines? Props on that bro, I'm floored with that.

I wish I could rotate the RPM in the e30, so the Redline is in the middle (sort of like an older Racing Dynamics RPM gauge) but then I lose the econometer... and I want it to look stock

NOTORIOUS VR · 02-24-2008, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by craz azn

That cluster is sick. Its possible on the Vdubs to just switch the guts around?? And did you print it on vinyl or something to get the gauge face/numbers/lines? Props on that bro, I'm floored with that.

I wish I could rotate the RPM in the e30, so the Redline is in the middle (sort of like an older Racing Dynamics RPM gauge) but then I lose the econometer... and I want it to look stock

Yes and no... you can just swap the motors around on this cluster (and maybe others)... but to make it work, I obviously had to divert the connections from one side to the other. I basically "cut" the tracks on the circuit board and then used very thin wire to jump it to the other side.

As for the faces, no it's actually just on photo paper... it's not the best solution because it's a little shiny and doesn't look quite OEM, but at least everything is sharp because the print quality is high.

thanks for the compliments