GloriaRedStang

As part of freshening my sad interior, I swapped out my yellow gauges for cool white and red 924S gauges, which I bought from Borys (Airflite40). Now I've got a voltmeter in place of the non-operating clock. I had to give up the MPG-meter in the tacho, but I think the sacrifice was more than worth it. I stripped the paint from the gauge bezels in the main pod and polished them up to a brushed sheen with a dremel. I also swapped out the old pod face, which had a Chevy-Vannish wood grain (see below), and put in an original silver one. Lastly, I got all Speed Racer and turned the speedo and the tacho about 45 degrees to rectify visibility issues behind the steering wheel.

I tried to upgrade the dim gauge lights with some pre-fabbed LEDs from eBay, but they're not fitting/working. Before I complain about that purchase, I'll talk to the seller to see if he will offer to cure.

Here's the after:



And here's what it looked like before:



I don't have pics of the new center stack, which still has the faux wood grain look. I'll try to source an original condition replacement (if anyone has one PM me) or peel off the applique.

I also have a related question or two about this install that I'll start another thread on (they have to do with a warning buzzer and chasing the electrical gremlin on a single dash bulb).

FRporscheman

What a... TRANSFORMation!

You have no idea how much of an improvement it will be to have a black dash. I had a red 944 with brown dash, and I tried lots of things with the gauges, carpets, steering wheels, shifters, and none of it even came close to the whop-factor of when I sprayed the dash black. You probably don't even have to take it out.

But anyway I never thought of polishing the gauge bezels! Nice touch!

GloriaRedStang

you'll be happy to learn that I moved optimus prime to the never used cigarette lighter ****.

Rakien

Nice, were the gauges easy and fast to install? I have 924 gauge faceplates but I'm debating whether I should put them on.
Do you also have the link to the dash lights you bought on eBay? I got some to and they might just be the same faulty ones you got, so I just want to make sure that they aren't.Thanks

zehnd

Good idea on the polished bezels. Did you strip the paint with chemical, sandpaper or with the dremel. What ends did you use for the dremel to polish.
Thanks

GloriaRedStang

Here's my center stack with the voltmeter instead of the clock. I love the green. Now my gauges are all operable aimed at the business of driving.



As for stripping the bezels in the main pod, I used a combination of a fine grit sandpaper tip and a rotary steel brush on the dremel, but I also used some steel wool. I also used a metal polish and with a buffer tip. If I were to do it again, I'd probably skip the dremel almost entirely and use the steel wool. I would probably just buff it out with the dremel, but since I bought it for this project I felt I had to use it.

Installation of the new pod and gauges probably took about 2 hours. Easy peasy if you get past the initial hesitation of pulling the entire steering assembly and old gauges out.

As for the LEDs, I got those from Julian914, but before I complain I want to try again and see if I didn't miss something. The bulbs shipped without instructions and I THINK I could've figured it out, but who knows. I'm a lawyer, not a mechanic/electrician/handy guy. Stand by though, I really want to improve my dash lighting.

alex

Make do with what you have, take what you can get.
Pay no mind to us, we're just a....

GloriaRedStang

strangely applicable to owning a 25+ year old 944.