So i decided to tackle the task of doing a upgrade to our current ugly amber dash just like many has in the past, after much reading and seeing how others have done it i realized that it was a headache and just changed the bulbs in the back to LED that were white and you could get them pre-made on superbrightleds.com. Well from my experience it was the easy thing to do but also the worst. Do they work ? of course, does it look the best ? Not at all !
I found that they would give me hot spots and you cant see your needles at night and it just looked plain tacky
The end result is the white led mess that is in the first pic i believe, i will be updating the post with more pics of the finished product and everything that i ended up doing but this was just to start the thread.

Phase one. Disassemble your dash by dropping your steering column,and getting the 4 screws that are keeping the cover on. Un clip your combo switches by the 2 tabs that are both on them and just kinda wiggle them out(the one on the right has a wring harness attached so make sure to unplug it!). Under it all look for 4 10mm Screws that should be gold in color that are holding your gauge cluster in and remove those next. Once you have those out then the cluster should be movable, DO NOT FORGET to unplug the light for your key ring and for your mirror adjust. After that there are only 2 plugs on the back of the gauges that will let it free and you can transfer it to your workbench.

Phase 2.
hopefully you picked the color LED you wanted to use before everything or else you wasted your time on phase one.
From here you want to take apart the whole cluster and leave yourself just the gauge pod with no cover on it, There are 2 screws in front and clips that hold it together to release it from the big *** black piece. Next you must take out the 2 screws that hold the metal bracket onto the gauge cluster its self and then you should all be free with access to your needles and gauge face.
Next step, use a mini screwdriver and get your face movable by removing all the tiny *** screws. Once you have that loose you have to kinda pry/pull back the face itself and then SAND the rear of the face to get the amber film off (its the only way it can be done!!) BE EXTREAMLY CAREFUL NOT TO CRACK YOUR FACE !! Take your time and just work with it. I only sanded the 4 main spots and did not worry about the warning lights and turn signals.

Phase 3.
Assemble your LED's by using the stock light bulb fixtures that you pulled from the back,
make sure to get the proper LED with the largest viewing angle you can get! the more viewing angle the better flood of light you will have with no hotspots. I found a 360 degree LED and its Amazing ! also unlike most conversions on these years MY NEEDLES STILL GLOW !! Now where ever you get your LEDS from make sure to get the proper resistor for a 12V application and then you must solder them all together and make a bulb. im not here to hold your hand but mine are in pic 2 for a sorta reference of how i made them(your design might be different/better)

Phase 4.
Put your new LED bulbs in the back of your cluster and take it to the car to plug in and test, now i found it was easier to do this with it all still apart and just using the cluster.
You will find that the LED's do have a positive and a negative so if they do not light up right away then you will just have to flip them and retwist the other way. If that did not work then you would have to just your solder to the resistor ( i tested all of mine using a 9 volt battery on my bench before i put them in the cluster just to make sure the connection was right) Once everything is all good and you have lights and YOU are happy with the finished product then you just put it all back together the same way you took it apart.

I will update the thread with my finished product as well right after this first post.
I opted to use blue LEDS and then i made a diffuser where OUR redline should be at and made that a RED LED to give it a cooler effect IMO.
I also am redoing the LCD to Either a Brighter blue or a brighter red LED because the 360degree was not bright enough to shine through.
Feel free to ask any questions or give me any feedback, i will answer and try to help as much as possible.

Time wise i spent about 30 hours of trial and error learning what not to do before i got it all correct.

 

Semi Finished dash, I will be redoing the LCD !
Im trying to get more pics up but its saying FAIL everytime i upload.. Im working on it later today

 

First off AWESOME write up here!!
Now for a couple questions:
What grit sans paper did you use to get the amber film off?
How long did it take you to sand the amber film off also?
Are those th stock bulb holders that used to solder the blue ones on there?
What size blue (or whatever color) LEDs did you use to solder onto this bulb holders? I've used the Plcc2 I believe we're the ones but they went on th gauge cluster not on bulb holders

THANKS YOU!! Looking to do this project but wanna keep my needles working with not hotspots just like this

 

last pics looks good! BTW u need gas

 

thanks for the compliments so far guys.

JB: i used 120grit and just was very careful, My parts list was the 360 degree 5mm LED's from Superbrightleds.com and i think it was 580ohm resistors that i bent and made to go into the fixture. you will want to take out the electrical connectors that are in the stock fixtures which can be done with just some pliers. i rested the LED's in there by using hot glue since there is little to no heat behind the cluster.

V35: I got gas after i put it all back together lol Thanks though

 

Did you ever change the AC display?

 

You should offer your services for money. Im sure alot of people would send you the cluster out of thier car.I know I would pay for that.

 

I am just about to undertake this..... journey. I think I may go with the painting route.

 

Does anyone sell the parts for this mod as a package?

Alternatively, do you have a parts list? I'd like to upgrade my bulbs to blue LEDs.