W123 Gauge needle color? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

scoodidabop · #1 07-01-2009, 08:38 AM

My gauge needles are kinda bright yellow at the moment... is this the original color? I was thinking about painting them red while I have the odometer out for fixing. Should I just leave well enough alone?

I ordered some LED lights for the cluster; I want my setup to look like this one: w123 LED light upgrade Post #3.

::matthew · #2 07-01-2009, 09:01 AM

kinda pricey, but this is the paint I used. It seems to be very close to the original orange.

TX76513 · #3 07-01-2009, 09:09 AM

Testers # 2938 $1.84

tbomachines · #4 07-01-2009, 10:21 AM

9 bucks a pop for those LEDs

. I outfitted my cluster with a handful of ultra-bright LEDs from radioshack (which, btw tends to be on the expensive side) for less than one of those bulbs. Just need a couple resistor or two and a soldering iron. I think the real "bottleneck" for the system is the light prism that supposedly carries the light to the gauges...mine stinks. Stock bulbs produced NO light, one LED per side produced distinguisable light but still too dim, had to pile 3 on each side.

If you want to do it yourself I can help you out with the resistors to get, etc.

::matthew · #5 07-01-2009, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbomachines

9 bucks a pop for those LEDs

. I outfitted my cluster with a handful of ultra-bright LEDs from radioshack (which, btw tends to be on the expensive side) for less than one of those bulbs. Just need a couple resistor or two and a soldering iron. I think the real "bottleneck" for the system is the light prism that supposedly carries the light to the gauges...mine stinks. Stock bulbs produced NO light, one LED per side produced distinguisable light but still too dim, had to pile 3 on each side.

If you want to do it yourself I can help you out with the resistors to get, etc.

I imagine this is the case with others too, but in my case I had heard about people frying their clusters trying the homegrown LED approach. The lights from LEDlight are very bright(5 LEDs) and are a drop in replacement.

scoodidabop · #6 07-01-2009, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TX76513

Testers # 2938 $1.84

Would any neon orange acrylic craft-paint work?

tbomachines · #7 07-01-2009, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ::matthew

I imagine this is the case with others too, but in my case I had heard about people frying their clusters trying the homegrown LED approach. The lights from LEDlight are very bright(5 LEDs) and are a drop in replacement.

I believe it. You'd be surprised how many people will simply drop in any ol' LED without doing the simple math first. Or, some think that the car strictly runs on 12V when in reality it can spike to 14ish which will fry LEDs if you don't accommodate. Or, they will run the LEDs at their peak voltage which creates a lot of heat within the unit. All of these can be averted with a little foresight. I'm also a cheapo, so saving 5-10 bucks is worth it to me. I'm sure these bulbs are good.

TX76513 · #8 07-01-2009, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scoodidabop

Would any neon orange acrylic craft-paint work?

Probably, just offering up what I used.

rrgrassi · #9 07-01-2009, 11:35 AM

I just cleaned the prisms and painted the area that the light bulbs go in to a gloss white. The years sure added lots of dust and the origianl white paint was a lot "off -white". I did this when I had the cluster out for an ODO repair.

rcounts · #10 07-01-2009, 12:56 PM

I painted my needles with some fluorescent red-orange marker paint I had. It was in an aerosol can, so I just sprayed some into the cap and used a brush to apply it.

Three things I did to increase the brightness of the cluster lighting.
1) Like rrgrassi, I removed and cleaned the clear plastic light-conducting elements
2) I applied pieces of silver-foil tape (like they use for duct work insulation) to the forward facing side of the "hoods" that hide the light-conducting elements. Basically making the black hoods into reflectors.
3) Used bleach and a Q-tip to clean all the white painted numbers and marks on the gauge faces.

Turned out great. The needles are nice and bright red-orange color and the combination of more light reflected forward and the numbers and markings being a true white again made my cluster very easy to read at night - even for these tired old eyes.