Robin 993DX

As promised the DIY for the 993 aluminum gauge face upgrade is complete, the DIY can be found under the p-car.com DIY section.

I went with the NR Automobile gauge face option as recommended by others on the board.

Right now I have a mix feeling about the results, the gauge faces looks great in the day time, much cleaner than the factory gauge faces without the warning light cut outs, but the illumination is terrible at night. I can barely see most of the gauge needles, the only one that's clear at night is the clock. Also during the day time the warning light are barely noticeable.

I personally can not endorse this particular kit, I still have not decided to keep the gauges with this particular upgrade or not.

<a href="http://p-car.com/diy/alugauges/images/newlight4.jpg" target="_blank"> <img src="http://p-car.com/diy/alugauges/thumbnails/newlight4.jpg" alt=" - " />
Aluminum gauge face upgrade</a>

GeoT3

Robin,
I have the factory aluminum gage face by VDO. Day time the gages are easy to read as with the warning light cut outs. At night, the silver gage face turn to a graphite color. To me, at night, the gages are hard to read (unless I am just getting old). I think the factory gage lighting system is inherently weak to start with and it probably works best with the standard black face gages.

bet

Kim,

I know you know the only real worth while up grade in any lighting situation on our cars is HID...

Do you think Autolamps makes a conversion kits for dash lights?

Sachin Misra

Are there any brighter bulbs available for the dash ? How many are there ?

Sachin Misra

Robin,

If you decide to get rid of the guages, I have the stock guages that I wanted to convert to silver. I am willing to send you my stock guages + some cash. Let me know if you decide not to keep them.

993chaz

Very informative DIY on your site Robin!!

Thank you <img border="0" alt="[thumbsup]" title="" src="graemlins/bigok.gif" />

Tim Ashfield

Robin

Great DIY thanks. From reading it you seem to have found a way to remove the tachometer without removing the steering column cowls. As someone who has tried to do that and failed, could you pass on the secret?

Many thanks.

DJF1

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by George Huang:
<strong>Robin,
I have the factory aluminum gage face by VDO. Day time the gages are easy to read as with the warning light cut outs. At night, the silver gage face turn to a graphite color. To me, at night, the gages are hard to read (unless I am just getting old). I think the factory gage lighting system is inherently weak to start with and it probably works best with the standard black face gages.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Do we have the same gauges? I was actually VERY susprised when I changed my gauges to the factory silver ones of how nice they look at night! They turn into black color at night and to my eyes they are very clear to see! No problems whatsoever, they look great!
Sorry Robin,but I would have trusted TechArt like you originally said, they make high quality products equally or better than factory....

J-McDonald

See my post on this board re: night visibility of white face gauges. I'm not sure of the manufacturer of my gauge faces (they were done by North Hollywood Speedometer).

I haven't had any problems with the nighttime visibility of my gauges since the conversion.

Robin 993DX

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Tim Ashfield:
<strong>Robin

Great DIY thanks. From reading it you seem to have found a way to remove the tachometer without removing the steering column cowls. As someone who has tried to do that and failed, could you pass on the secret?

Many thanks.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Tim,

I am not sure what the secret was, I did it at night with only the interior light of the car on. So maybe since I didn't see what was going on I was not scared to use more force to get it out.

Robin 993DX

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Sachin Misra:
<strong>Are there any brighter bulbs available for the dash ? How many are there ?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Sachin,

That's my next experiment, I did notice that the light bulbs used for the back ground illumination is different from the warning lights.

I will keep everyone posted on the results.

Tim Ashfield

Thanks Robin,

Thinking about this the difference may be that my car has the OBC and I think there is a good chance that the tachometer casings are different shapes. Maybe the non OBC tach has a cut out or sloping area to allow it to be removed. I am convinced as is my mechanic that you cannot remove the OBC version without removing the cowls which requires removal of the steering wheel.

A note to this effect might be an idea in the DIY to stop OBC owners struggling in vain!!

Also is it worth mentioning that if you disconnect the speedo you will need to get the airbag light reset?

Thanks again - great DIY. As are the rest on your site - they have been a big help to me with my car I appreciate the effort you have put into the site.

Robin 993DX

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Tim Ashfield:
<strong>Thanks Robin,

Also is it worth mentioning that if you disconnect the speedo you will need to get the airbag light reset?

</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">I didn't have any issues with the air bag light, and I didn't disconnect the battery during this DIY. In any case I think the air bag light is on the clock, not the speedo. Thanks for the info on the tach removal, I will add the suggestion line in there for SOL OBC 993 owners.

Thank you very much for the comments on the web site.

Tim Ashfield

Hi Robin,

The only reason for mentioning the airbag light is that I have read a couple of old threads that state if you disconnect the speedo you will need to reset the airbag light.You seem to have proved this to be wrong which is another useful piece of information in itself.

Mine needed resetting because as you suggest I had to disconnect the battery to remove the airbag steering wheel. And this would therefore be the case for this DIY on OBC cars.

Cheers.

GeoT3

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by DJF1:
<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by George Huang:
<strong>Robin,
I have the factory aluminum gage face by VDO. Day time the gages are easy to read as with the warning light cut outs. At night, the silver gage face turn to a graphite color. To me, at night, the gages are hard to read (unless I am just getting old). I think the factory gage lighting system is inherently weak to start with and it probably works best with the standard black face gages.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Do we have the same gauges? I was actually VERY susprised when I changed my gauges to the factory silver ones of how nice they look at night! They turn into black color at night and to my eyes they are very clear to see! No problems whatsoever, they look great!
Sorry Robin,but I would have trusted TechArt like you originally said, they make high quality products equally or better than factory....</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Danny,
The factory silver gages does look have a cool appearance at night however, I just think the back lighting could be better.