Greetings all!

I'm just wondering if its possible to get different colour dash needles as the stock orange ones are pretty boring. I be honest and say thats it not really going to my dash, so there's no issue of recalibration, instead I've got other plans/use for the needles inside my car. I really just want to get white ones.

Where do I get them from and how much am I looking at for a set of three?

Thanks all!

you wont need to calibrate anything, you can just take them off and put them back in and they work as they always have.

In regards to colour, im not sure about the 3rd gens and if they came in different colours, but you can always spray paint them whatever colour you want

you wont need to calibrate anything, you can just take them off and put them back in and they work as they always have.

In regards to colour, im not sure about the 3rd gens and if they came in different colours, but you can always spray paint them whatever colour you want

If I spray them will light go through them like the stock orange ones?

try a bit of paint and patience... I know of red needles, they came in the sports models (Sports, VR,VRX)

What I'm planning to do is to try and replace the stock heater/aircon/fan knobs in my car with a custom moulded base (with a bit of fibreglassing) and a small dash needle ontop. I was hoping to have them white. What I might do is take a trip to Jolly's and have a look in a few different cars for different needles and just use them. If I can find white ones then I stick a blue light on it and it'd be blue.

What do you think - is it possible or am I just dreaming?

Do the needles have light bulbs in the cluster lighting them up or are there surface mount LEDs built into the needles themselves? If its the latter it will be more difficult.

3rd gen dash needles are a clear, thin plastic blade which is moulded to a circular base at the end. this is then covered with another piece of black plastic.

What happens, is that the 3rd gen cluster has a small light behind each of the needles, which pushes the light into the clear blade. on the underside of the blade, is a painted orange strip. the light bounces inside this plastic blade and rests upon the orange paint.

if you remove this orange strip with say, a knife blade, you can repaint it whatever colour you like and you will then have different coloured needles:)

3rd gen dash needles are a clear, thin plastic blade which is moulded to a circular base at the end. this is then covered with another piece of black plastic.

What happens, is that the 3rd gen cluster has a small light behind each of the needles, which pushes the light into the clear blade. on the underside of the blade, is a painted orange strip. the light bounces inside this plastic blade and rests upon the orange paint.

if you remove this orange strip with say, a knife blade, you can repaint it whatever colour you like and you will then have different coloured needles:)

This man speaks truth.

The orange can also supposedly be removed with metho or nail polish remover.

This man speaks truth.

The orange can also supposedly be removed with metho or nail polish remover.

I tried this on my 2nd gen. I modified the needles by scraping the underside of it and making it a bit rough. it didnt work as well as i had hoped due to the cluster not having the bulbs to light up the needles. thats why i used a knife blade:)

if you remove this orange strip with say, a knife blade, you can repaint it whatever colour you like and you will then have different coloured needles:)so let me get this right... the cluster needles are just 'pop on, pop off' yea? the orange colour is due to a paint on the underneath of the needle, said paint can be removed with knife blade or solvent and then repainted to suit?

mmm, might ring my brother and find out just when I can have my car back, do not likey the orange needles, always thought it was harder to modify than that :eeek:

The needle is stuck to that black round thing, which comes off. Unsure if the needle itself can be removed from the round disk which holds the needle itself. (am i making any sense here? hehehe)

Then yes, underside of the needs will have a coloured strip. Replace that, and bingo. Just make sure you remember where the needle itself was positioned (especially for the fuel gauge)

Going to :bump: this thread.

I'm just wondering if the needles/cluster needs to be re-calibrated after they are removed? Going off this thread (http://www.aussiemagna.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-31174.html) it seems that the dials need to be reconfigured. With such low speed tolerance in victoria (2-3kms) I would not want to have a inaccurate speedo (at the very least), plus having the right temp & rev readings is also very important to me. I don't want to pay $80-100+ to have it re-calibrated just to have different colour needles.

Going to :bump: this thread.

I'm just wondering if the needles/cluster needs to be re-calibrated after they are removed? Going off this thread (http://www.aussiemagna.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-31174.html) it seems that the dials need to be reconfigured. With such low speed tolerance in victoria (2-3kms) I would not want to have a inaccurate speedo (at the very least), plus having the right temp & rev readings is also very important to me. I don't want to pay $80-100+ to have it re-calibrated just to have different colour needles.

I replaced the needles in my old cluster with red ones form a sports. Basically, took off the plastic cover from the cluster and put the cluster back in. Before taking off the orange needles I let the car get up to operating temperature at idle and took a picture of where the RPM, fuel and temperature needles went. I carefully replaced these where they needed to go with the engine running. The harder part was the speedo - just set the speed alert to 50, drove around the block and after a great deal of trial and error got it in the right position. The only hassle I had was I pushed the fuel one on a little to far, which prevented it from moving. After filling up the fuel tank I loosened it a little and it was all good!