HOWTO - Make your own "indiglo" gauge faces
!!!!- DISCLAIMER -!!!!
I take no responsiblity for any damages that may occur when working on your car.
YOU WILL BE WORKING WITH A/C POWER! IT HURTS! BE VERY CAREFUL!
This equipment is EXTREMELY FRAGILE and cannot be bought in seperate pieces.
If you want to replace a piece, take your ass to the junkyard, or be prepared to buy the whole cluster from Toyota for $900!

THIS WRITEUP IS STILL IN PROGRESS!! IT IS INCOMPLETE!!!

MATERIALS NEEDED:

  • 16x6 piece of Electroluminescent sheet
  • Power inverter for EL sheet
  • Cutting instruments (Xacto knife)
  • Screwdrivers
  • 2 spoons or a pry tool to take off the needles
  • InkJet or whatever printer you have Transparencies (office supply stores)
  • Laminate (don't heat)(enough to cover both sides of the material)
  • White stencil film (for the color of the gauges -daytime)
  • Scanner
  • A Girlfriend to yell at you when you spend too much time on this
  • Printer
  • Clear Packing tape
  • Stuff to wire up inverters to your car

    If you have an automatic transmission, read this

    So ya wanna make your own gauges, eh?

    Here's the first draft of this and I'm working off old pictures..
    I'll attempt to update this at some point in my life

    STEP 1

    Take your gauges out.... I found out how to do this HERE. Instructions thanks to ByeByeBaby who wrote the howto and posted it on NewCelica.Org

    STEP 2
    Pull off your gauge face. There are 2 little tabs by the openings for the needles, and some adhesive opposite of the needles fairly near the hole. If it appears to be sticking too much, hold it by a light bulb for a minute or so to loosen up the adhesive.
    STEP 3
    Scan your gauges, I'd post my scan, but the file is extremely enormous....
    Remember, the better quality the picture, the easier it will be to select stuff in photoshop or whatever program you will use.

    You will need to make:

    • An image for the actual gauge face which consists of:(Print on Transparency)
      • a transparent background
      • outlines for the whole thing
      • outlines for all of the holes. This includes holes for needles, gas/temp gauge and alignment pins.
      • all of the ticks, numbers and writing
      • your girlfriend not hate you every night that you work on this.
    • Templates for cutting the Electroluminescent Sheet (you can make this on a transparency). This will include holes for:
      • Indicators
      • Turn signals
      • Needles
      • Alignment pins
      MAKE SURE THAT MEASUREMENTS ARE EXACT AND YOU CAN PRINT IT TO THE EXACT SIZE OF THE GAUGE FACE
      (You may need to find paper and transparencies larger than standard 8 1/2" X 11" Letter) (You may also rotate the image so that it fits (for the most part) on letter)

    STEP 4
    Find yourself some Electroluminescent Sheets
    They can be found by searching online for it... watch out... not too easy to come by... so I'll tell you where I bought mine.
    www.beingseen.com

    I don't recommend this place much after talking to real manufacturers of the material that can actually fabricate the lamp to exact specs and have been doing it for aviation for the past 20 years and work with the military and commercial airline manufacturers. They can make these for us for about $10-20 as long as we can pay for 500 of them. email me if you've got money to burn. They need designs and specs. I've got them in my head and partly on my computer
    Although I don't like the place where I got my material, I gotta admit that the guy is friendly and fairly helpful. The problem is that he will give you a piece of a bigger piece w/no choice of where you want your connectors and whatnot, or what type of connectors..... Kind of like shooting in the dark.

    Once you receive your piece, be careful to cut out from the correct sides so that you have enough room to connect it to wires and hide the black stripe on the side which is needed to connect it to inverters.
    I cannot get into great detail on that, use common sense, and make sure you're not cutting the wrong place... this crap ain't cheap from beingseen

    STEP 5
    Finish taking your gauges apart.
  • Make sure you've taken off all of the screws on the back of the gauge cluster
  • Wiggle the clear plastic piece w/the pins off of the holes that the pins go into the circuitboard in.
  • Remove the White Piece under the clear piece you just took off

    • You will now be left with the circuitboard

    STEP 6
    REMOVING THE LCD
    Ok... I have to stress yet again .. BE CAREFUL!!!!! and I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BREAK YOUR CAR!
    these pieces are quite fragile and it almost sounds/feels like you break them when you remove them...
    You have been warned.. Proceed with caution if you wish.

    The LCD is held in only by 4 clips that clip to the back of the circuitboard, and the pins on the bottom of the screen into the connector on the circuitboard.
    Undo the clips, and gently push on the white nubs that stick through the circuitboard. Gently rock the puppy out.. It takes time, patience, and a steady hand... DO NOT RUSH YOURSELF I didn't break mine, so why should you?

    STEP 7
    Underneath the LCD, there are 2 pieces, the Diffuser (clear plastic piece) and the shiny piece (no clue... probably makes the light brighter or reflects it, or evens it out.)
  • Take the clear diffuser piece and cutout a piece of electroluminescent sheet that matches it. Make sure you leave room for the bus-bar to stick out on top

    The reason that you must do this is that you need to keep it slim enough so that the LCD can sit flush w/the white piece it was sitting in.
    You will have to grind some of the big white piece so that you can slide it on over the connector without bending it.
    I broke my piece of EL for the gas/temp because I did not originally cut this and bent it too far.

    ATTENTION!!! IF YOU HAVE AN AUTOMATIC!!!! Make sure that you don't have a light where you need to cut out the plastic. I have never taken a automatic gauge cluster apart, so I don't know if you guys have an extra light there.

    • STEP 8
    Attach connections to EL (check beingseen.com's site)
    LAMINATE THE EL, IF YOU DON'T, HUMIDITY CAN GET INSIDE AND THAT'S BAD M'KAY?
    This step is pretty much explained w/the pieces of EL you got

    STEP 9
    You will now have to put everything together and wire it in.
    In terms of wiring, follow beingseen's instructions for hooking up the inverters to the EL, and to 12V power (parking light wire or other)
    Place the EL on top of the stock gauges, making sure you have enough clearance between it and the needles. They can get stuck. Trust me on this one.
    Once you've put everything back together, take it down to the car and try it out!

    Pictures taken during creation & planning

    All of this crap is MY fault!