I did something like this but took the easy road with my 99 Subaru Legacy Outback’s instrument cluster. I had already replaced my upper tail light with some 12v red LED wedge lights I found from a small place online (http://www.acscontrol.com, they don’t make these anymore, but you can find similar products elsewhere). They were advertised as replacements for gaming machines and backlit switchboards, but work in a car’s 12v system just fine.
The original cluster was backlit with incandescent 5 and 10mm wedge bulbs, with green paint on the back of the guages to give them their color. So it was a simple task to sand this off and just replace the bulbs with the blue LED PCB wedge lights. A couple hours of careful sanding and I got rid of that ugly pale green color.
Getting the center console (HVAC, CD changer head unit, shifter, toggle buttons, etc.) to be lit red, however, was neither fun nor quick. This ended up being a combination of silicone bulb covers, paint, and LEDs of various sizes and types. That and replacing a single green 3mm led with a red one in my driver’s door window control required taking the whole door trip panel off.
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I did something like this but took the easy road with my 99 Subaru Legacy Outback’s instrument cluster. I had already replaced my upper tail light with some 12v red LED wedge lights I found from a small place online (http://www.acscontrol.com, they don’t make these anymore, but you can find similar products elsewhere). They were advertised as replacements for gaming machines and backlit switchboards, but work in a car’s 12v system just fine.
The original cluster was backlit with incandescent 5 and 10mm wedge bulbs, with green paint on the back of the guages to give them their color. So it was a simple task to sand this off and just replace the bulbs with the blue LED PCB wedge lights. A couple hours of careful sanding and I got rid of that ugly pale green color.
Getting the center console (HVAC, CD changer head unit, shifter, toggle buttons, etc.) to be lit red, however, was neither fun nor quick. This ended up being a combination of silicone bulb covers, paint, and LEDs of various sizes and types. That and replacing a single green 3mm led with a red one in my driver’s door window control required taking the whole door trip panel off.
See also
http://www.kawiforums.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=33730
for a description of how to change the LED backlighting on recent Kawasaki Sports bikes.