Dashboard Backlight Change?

[ultraviolet]

I *really* love the purple colour of the dashboard lighting in VW's and would *really* love that same colour for my 2002 Tahoe. I've looked around a little but all I've ever seen are the dash replacements that have an ugly white face with purple lights - I'd like to keep the black dash and just have the lights come up purple when lit.

Does anyone know if it would even be possible to switch out all of the lights or does anyone know of a dash replacement with black/purple and not white/purple?

Thanks!

[bartlanz]

Purple will be a difficult one to do. It could almost be prohibatively difficult. You may want to look into other colors, such as red, blue or green. But you are correct, it would look realy cool!!!

I see that you would have maybe 3 choices:

1 Keep stock dash and deck, get some modeling paint and paint the existing bulbs (I have done this for other projects, and it does work although color saturation can be hard to achieve.)

2 get a new deck and dash that are what you want (no idea where or what to get though)

3 keep stock dash and deck and change bulbs to purple bulb's or led's. both of which could be a trick but is very doable.

I think I would start with option one, and if I was not happy with it, go to option three

well thats my two cents

[ultraviolet]

I feel like a moron - I'd never even considered trying to paint the bulbs first.

I'd be willing to settle for LED blue, but the look of Pontiac dash red lights and more green than the lights already are wouldn't be worth it. (A girl has to have her standards!)

Now if only I could find the perfect paint or a junked VW that happens to have the same size bulbs as the one used in the Tahoe.

[typicalsituations]

remember, all the guages and radio buttons and AC buttons have a GREEN colored inlay. So If you paint the bulbs purple, you might end up with a strange color!

[burnM]

What I did to change my dash light colors was this.
I went to a salvage yard an picked up another cluster(in case I messed up beyond the point of being able to fix it). I took it apart and painstakingly cut the greenish blue inlay pieces that I didn't want out of the face, using an exacto knife. I bought some transparent film in the colors of my choice, and painstakingly cut and glued them into place on the backside of the faces. It took me a long time to do, but this allowed me to retain the clear light bulbs, and get the exact hue that I wanted from my guages.

My guages now (for example, the tach) starts at 0 with a blue tone,then gets deeper/darker and changes from that to purple,(gradually) and then goes to a deep solid red at the redline. The only thing I have to figure out now, is how to change the color of the digital speedo from green to match, which is hard to do because it is an aqua color and I can't just cut the color out of it

Oh! and a great place to pick up different colored lights, (if that's the way you're going to go) is a truck-stop, believe it or not....

Hope that helps you make a decision!

[patriot_youth]

i bought a reverse-glow gauge set for my '98 tahoe and it was white. it like hella nice. the only thing about it was that the light shining through was bright white (turn signals, brights, indicator lights, etc.) i didn't like it so i went to the store and bought some of that tail light repair tape. i taped it to the back of the gauges set before i installed it. it looks pretty pimp. i think that would probably work on the black ones if you life the face up and put it on the back side of the gauge...my 2 cents.