Question About Gauge Needles

[emenous]

Ok, a few days ago, I was bored and just installed some white Gauges. I had some White Acrylic Paint lying aroud so I grabbed some and Proceeded to Paint my needles.

Needless to say, but that was a bad idea on my part. The Paint weights down the needles some causing incorrect readings. Then at night, it looks plain horrible. The light dosn't shine through like I thought it would and just looks craptastic.

I went to the dealership to try to buy some new ones, 2002, becuase they looked more redish orange than the 2000's. They told me I couldn't just buy the needles but had to buy the entire cluster, which was about 200 dollars.

Where can I buy just the needles? It would be better if I could buy them from a website, as there isn't much of anything locate near me. It desn't matter if its 2002 or not and do other car Gauge needles work, like from Eclipses?

thanks

[BlueESV6]

Someone had some needles for sale a while back... you might find it by doing a search. I think the problem with changing needles is it may possibly mess up the calibration of your instrument cluster. You may just want to try and clean them off with some sort of cleaner (very gently) like acetone or some sort of thinner...

[BGR]

If he already removed them to paint 'em, the cluster will need to be re-calibrated anyway. I don't know about anyone else but trying to re-calibrate the cluster myself was less than successful, so I bought another gauge cluster (with less miles to boot :wink: )

I have an extra gauge cluster but I can't sell it. I got it on ebay for $50. Junk yards sell them for $100.

[pinoyesv6]

lightly sand the needles down or yea use some acetone. maybe use your finger to scrape off the paint. and then if you can find a really thin white out pen or a permanent marker that u like the color of, use that to change the color. hell, you can jsut sand it lightly and get that frosted look.

uhm as for using another car's needles, remember what u just said, the paint alone caused the needle to give in accurate readings so another car's needles is most likely gonna give a different weight too...

[Big H Killa]

Well just so you know it's a pain in the ass to recalibrate the needles but I did it successully except for my temp gauge. which i still have to fix because when the car warms up the needle is 3/4 of the way to hot so I need to fix that soon.

[pinoyesv6]

my suggestion to every1 is to not pull the needles off the car to recallibrate them. i know in some of the guages like the speedo and the tach you need to but, if the discallibration isn't causeing problems to the guages besides an inaccurate readout, i'd just learn how far they are off and just keep that in the back of your head. the reason i say that is that the guage cluster is really delicate and by pulling the needles, you run a risk of ruining the mechanism that turns the needles. and that can be a very costly mistake. i mean i've pulled my needles off my car about a half dozen time but yea i know what i am doing but i'll tell u this, my most recent time, i did ruin my cluster and had to carefully rebuild it. that was a b!tch. so just be careful. o yea my temp guage, it only goes up to a quarter, and i just leave it there. i mean our temp guages is useless. it just goes to the middle after it warms up and just stays there til u start to overheat. and then thats when they move up to the top. so you can easily tell that you are overheating if the guages move past that certain spot. my tach is like 500 rpm off and my speedo is off by 15mph...

[BlueESV6]

When I changed my gauge faces I was paranoid about the speedo being off...

An easy way to check it is the go on the highway and using a stopwatch and your cruise... set the cruise to exactly 60mph... then start the stop watch just as you pass a mile marker...

If you pass the next mile marker at 60 seconds then your go to go! :wink: (This assumes mile markers are accurately spaced)

My gauges ended up being fine! Good Luck with those needles! https://www.thegalantcenter.org/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif

[blakstarz73]

If you do get the stuff off your needles, you can try using a Sharpie marker (finepoint) to color in your needles if you decide to do them over. Much cleaner and better way.

[Ghost Beat]

damn too many horror stories now im too damn scared to touch the cluster i realy wanted some other needles but guess its something else that thats not easily possible for the lant

[emenous]

I already had to remove the needles when I put the white gauges on (white with red mitsu symbol) and then pained them. I used a few coats of paint so I'm not sure oh easy it will be to fix. I just bought a set of Halo gauges cause I was very unhappy with my current ones. The gauges were off too, but i recalibraed them myslef. Gas was showing I had 1/6 less than what I had and my speedo was about 13 mph off ( Had a freind drive 60mph then had anouther friend put the needle on while i was following him). I'll prolly mess them up again once I put the new gauges on and fix the needles.

So there aren't any websites that just sell the needles?...I saw a few but they were for indiglo and neon needles and dind't want to pay 70 bucks for some.

[Fishboy55]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(emenous)</div><div class='quotemain'> I'll prolly mess them up again once I put the new gauges on and fix the needles..</div>

It's obviously too late now, but you should never have to take off your needles to replace the gauge faces. The GDI's and Halos both slip right over the needles and just screw in. As far as replacing your needles, I'd buy Rich's gauge cluster for $50 and start over. Oh, and just for future reference, if you're gonna do something to your car that you're not sure about, ask the question here forst or search. There's a wealth of resources and you can learn from other peoples experience and mistakes.

Chip

[Reelax]

ive taken my needles out a few times... the original speedhut EL's i had prototyped required gauge removal... the GDI's i customized so i had to remove the gauges again for those.

b4 i did this i knew my car... ES V6. i know what temp it runs at. i know what the redline is, i know what mph each of the 1st 2 gears is redlining at; unless u change your gearing ratios and rev-limiter, these are constant accross all 8G V6's.

knowing the above, this is what i do to calibrate:

install the gauges w/ the clear cover and main bezel off.
go fill the tank.
now go drive around the block so the car warms up and pull over then place the fuel needle at full and push it in lightly so it stays but not so it touches the gauge face.
do the same w/ the temp gauge at a little under halfway on the scale.
place the speedo needle on lightly at 0mph.
place the tach needle on lightly at about 750rpm idle.
lock into 1st gear "L".
drive to redline... your tach should be at 6250rpm and your speedo should be at 45 mph... if it's not, pull over and pull the needle off and adjust where it goes on and push it on lightly again. repeat until you get it right and when u do push needles in a little more to secure them.
now snap in the clear lense and screw in the main bezel and you are done.

[emenous]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fishboy55)</div><div class='quotemain'>
As far as replacing your needles, I'd buy Rich's gauge cluster for $50 and start over. Â*
</div>

If I knew who Rich was, I would probably buy it from him, but I don't come to the boards very ofton enless i screw up my car, like I did this time https://www.thegalantcenter.org/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif. What's his username so I can send him a PM.

Edit: Saw that Rich says he wasn't selling his....

[BlueESV6]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(emenous)</div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fishboy55)</div><div class='quotemain'>
As far as replacing your needles, I'd buy Rich's gauge cluster for $50 and start over. Â*
</div>

If I knew who Rich was, I would probably buy it from him, but I don't come to the boards very ofton enless i screw up my car, like this I did this time https://www.thegalantcenter.org/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif. What's his username so I can send him a PM.</div>

I think he means BGR (above posting). BGR said he bought his off e-bay for $50. You may want to check e-bay or see if BGR gas some for sale....