As my uno is red and has them cluster in with the rev counter, I've decided to install red LED's instead of the normal lights. will post pics.
Styling Red cluster
- Thread starter M@nticore
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Styling Red cluster
Naaa, you just replace the green filter with a red one. I've done it on my car and it looks great. From memory I used red silicone caps on the lights after removing the green filter.
The filter is a bit tricky to remove as its under that white piece of plastic on top of the cluster. You need to pry that off with a screw driver (being careful not to break it coz its glued). Then once its off just glue it back down with nothing under it, then use the silicone caps.
Its well worth the effort as the red instruments look very cool.
The filter is a bit tricky to remove as its under that white piece of plastic on top of the cluster. You need to pry that off with a screw driver (being careful not to break it coz its glued). Then once its off just glue it back down with nothing under it, then use the silicone caps.
Its well worth the effort as the red instruments look very cool.
OP
OP
removed the filter and installed the leds just need to get the right resistor tommorrow then I will post pics
Might have to post up a picture of my red instruments, made the way that jjhepburn suggested... 
The needles are red, so red light is the most sensible colour. It's actually clearer than the standard green...
-Alex
The needles are red, so red light is the most sensible colour. It's actually clearer than the standard green...
-Alex
Coloured LEDs are rubbish IMO i used blue ones in my instrument cluster and i hate them, you cant see the fuel and temp gauges properly at night or the bottom half of the speedo even with a white dial kit, as they are too directional as JJhepburn rightly pointed out, Its better to just change the colour of the original filter, i just got some Light filter gel sheets which DJs use for their lights and i'm gona make a coloured filter outta that instead and use the original bulbs,
should be interesting i might go for red instead of the blue as my cars RED too
F R O $ T Y
should be interesting i might go for red instead of the blue as my cars RED too
F R O $ T Y
I like my oldskool kool bog standard luminescent green SX instrument pod And my funky retro 80's red LED roof mounted clock
Even better is my dashboard pod switches light up courtesy of a simple 12v bulb shining through fibre optics!
Think I'm going to keep them standard
And my funky retro 80's red LED roof mounted clock Even better is my dashboard pod switches light up courtesy of a simple 12v bulb shining through fibre optics!
Think I'm going to keep them standard
WOW a still working fibre optic system, those bulbs are a pain to replace and they only light up the switches sort of
The red is definitely the colour to go for because it looks kinda retro, and Ferraris light up red Blue used to be cool (when the PS2 came out), but then the rice boys got hold of the idea and now pretty much everything has a blue LED in it, so now its just tacky.
I have a mk1 turbo cluster which is lit in red, with LEDs lighting the pod switches (Red for everything except the rear fog and demister which are orange)
The red is definitely the colour to go for because it looks kinda retro, and Ferraris light up red
Blue used to be cool (when the PS2 came out), but then the rice boys got hold of the idea and now pretty much everything has a blue LED in it, so now its just tacky.I have a mk1 turbo cluster which is lit in red, with LEDs lighting the pod switches (Red for everything except the rear fog and demister which are orange)
jjhepburn said:WOW a still working fibre optic system, those bulbs are a pain to replace and they only light up the switches sort of
There's only one bulb (under the instrument pod) and it's easy to replace! The reason most mk1's don't have a working fibre optic system is because the bulb is on when the ignition is on and they burn out after a few years and no-one bothers to change them. Not much to go wrong with one bulb and a jumble of fibre optics, at least as long as you don't snap them
jjhepburn said:The red is definitely the colour to go for because it looks kinda retro, and Ferraris light up red
That's why I like my original green lit black dials. Everyone else has switched to white dial kits and red or blue lighting. Not many have green and back dials anymore, so that makes mine kind of unique
jjhepburn said:
I have a mk1 turbo instrument pod as well, except I've never fitted it. No point really, as the SX pod does everything I need it to and the turbo pod would have some non-functioning gauges and no econometer. Besides, a boost gauge in a bog standard 45S is kind of silly
yeah, the problem with that bulb is that its got a special lens on it, which means you need to get the correct bulb when it blows...
As for the instrument cluster, I had the 45 cluster (no rev counter or temp gauge) and I like the look of the turbo one. Obviously some of the gauges don't work. But if I put the effort in I could get the oil temp and pressure gauges working as I have the sensors.
And I have figured out how to use the boost gauge as a radiator pressure gauge (gives early warning for a radiator failure), you attach it to the pipe that goes to the heater (but make sure you put a coolant catch tank in place and have everything above the water level coz I don’t think the gauge would appreciate being filled with coolant)... Now I just need to take the time to fit this mod
All other gauges work because I have a coolant temp sensor, and wiring up the tacko is easy.
As for the instrument cluster, I had the 45 cluster (no rev counter or temp gauge) and I like the look of the turbo one. Obviously some of the gauges don't work. But if I put the effort in I could get the oil temp and pressure gauges working as I have the sensors.
And I have figured out how to use the boost gauge as a radiator pressure gauge (gives early warning for a radiator failure), you attach it to the pipe that goes to the heater (but make sure you put a coolant catch tank in place and have everything above the water level coz I don’t think the gauge would appreciate being filled with coolant)... Now I just need to take the time to fit this mod
All other gauges work because I have a coolant temp sensor, and wiring up the tacko is easy.
OP
OP
mine looks excellent, got the very bright shining led's. will try to take pic with digital camera as my phone doesn't take a pic of the red.
jjhepburn said:
I just replaced it with a bog standard 12v bulb and it works fine. The original was also painted in translucent white, but a plain bulb works just as well and is much cheaper than buying the original from Fiat
jjhepburn said:
If I didn't have the SX instruments I'd have fitted the Turbo ones instead. The SX comes with all the usual stuff (fuel/ temp gauges and all the warning lights) plus a tachometer. I also found that I could remove the lower middle blanking plate to the right of the fuel/ temp gauges and fit the econometer from the S instrument pod, and the printed circuit board for the SX has all the correct tracks to make it work without any modifications! So I have speedo, fuel, temperature, econometer and the tachometer
If I had the turbo gauges fitted I wouldn't be able to use the econometer and without the engine sensors the oil pressure/ temperature gauges wouldn't work. I was hoping that the turbo boost gauge could be connected up to the econometer vacuum pipe, but the econometer uses negative vacuum whilst the turbo uses positive so it wouldn't work
However, the econometer does look like a boost gauge when driving - floor the throttle and the needle swings into the red jjhepburn said:And I have figured out how to use the boost gauge as a radiator pressure gauge (gives early warning for a radiator failure), you attach it to the pipe that goes to the heater (but make sure you put a coolant catch tank in place and have everything above the water level coz I don’t think the gauge would appreciate being filled with coolant)... Now I just need to take the time to fit this mod
I see you've been chatting to Alex
jjhepburn said:
Yup, tacho needs one wire to the low tension side of the coil and that's it. Nice and simple!
And yes, the turbo instruments will bolt straight in and all the essentials will work. LouieBee (what's happend to him?) had a mk1 Bianca with turbo instruments, and they all worked except for the turbo specific items. I might try fitting my spare turbo instrument pod to mine when I get back to the UK to see what it looks like, but I do like the functional simplicity of the SX gauges
Edit: Picture of my mk1 SX instrument pod, complete with econometer (lower middle gauge)
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OP
OP
sorry, but my camera doesn't take a picture off the red.
1986Uno45S said:
Louie is having an interesting time indeed, having moved to a new house and with bigger commitments on the way
I think the forum has rightly been de-prioritised for him, though I did see a post about his Mk2 Uno Turbo having been sold.
-Alex
(CZ)enda
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jjhepburn said:
Huh, indeed?
I always thought red dash light was very VW-esque.According to a source I already forgot, there are reasons for the lighting being green.
a) Green is less stressful for the eyes than other colors and
(now comes the scientific bit)
b) The light temperature of a standard H4 halogen bulb is lower than that of a daylight, meaning the light is not white but yellow/orange. Orange and green are complementary colors, which makes them contrast, which in turn makes the dials more visible at night when you are forced to look into H4s of the traffic in opposite direction.
The fact that some cars have green dash lighting and day-glo orange indicators seems to be supporting the theory.
The disproportion between H4 and HID bulbs light temperature is also the reason why the HIDs are so unpleasant to look at at night when you drive a car with standard H4s.
Did somebody try to make the dash lighting adjustable? If so, what was the rating of a potentiometer used in ohms?
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(CZ)enda said:
Good points (CZ)enda, but the gauge needles on the Turbo cluster are orange/red. So, under red lighting, the needles show up better than under green lighting. I find it easier to read at a glance, plus the odometer and trip meter are easy to read.
I think it very much comes down to personal preference, which also comes down to an individual's night vision/response. As people age, the adjustment between bright/dark happens more slowly, but it varies among all people. I'm lucky that I can still cope with bright lights followed by darkness, but I know that others are not so fortunate. So I like everything lit up like a Christmas tree, but to some people this would be distracting.
I remember that BMW gauges (OK, VDO to be exact) were illuminated in red a very long time ago.
jjhepburn also mentioned in the past that darkroom lighting is in red, so that low-light vision is improved.
If you are still keen for a potentiometer, the X1/9 1500 had one. It was just a wirewound variable resistor, nothing flash, and it allowed you to adjust the lights from dim to off.
This evening (ironically) I just 'fixed' the dash lights on a Honda Concerto - I was in total darkness the other night and had to guess my speed - the dimmer had failed. It is an electronic circuit (surface-mount components on a 1988 car - crazy!) and the circuit board tracks had widespread corrosion, so I elected to bypass the dimmer so the dashboard is nice'n'bright.
I was about to suggest using a Honda electronic dimmer in a FIAT, and then I remembered the nasty surprise that it's wired into the *earth* return... as I found out the sparky way when trying to bypass it... so it would not be easy to adapt to the FIAT's switched-live (usual) system.
Honda engines run backwards compared with everyone else's (gearbox is on the right-hand side of the car) so I suppose it was no surprise that the lighting is switched-earth. I think other Japanese cars are like this too (e.g. Toyota).
Anyway - four pictures: My Uno Turbo, my Stilo (showing the white dials, tachometer a sinstra for some reason?), my Stilo in the dark (isn't it nice that the white parts don't glow, and isn't it GREAT that it just happens to be RED!), and that Honda which has blue caps on the bulbs, but you'd never guess.
I have never once sat in a Japanese car and been impressed by the dials, day or night. They're always clear and simple, nothing more.
-Alex
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(CZ)enda
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alexGS said:
No, the reason for darkroom lighting being red is that the BW photopapers are not sensitive to the red part of the visible spectrum from certain value in Kelvin grades, i.e. you can leave the envelope open (for limited period of time, not 24 hours or so) without risking you will have to discard them because they were exposed by the darkroom lighting instead of the negative in your magnifier
.I would have to dig into my collection of photographical literature to provide the exact data, but I think the explanation above covers the principle quite well.
jjhepburn said:
That's because the car was sold new in Hong Kong, so it was English-specification
(CZ)enda said:
Thanks for the clarification!
Well, I still like my red dials... any other thoughts?
-Alex
