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DIC COLOR CHANGE!!! First atempt, learn from my mistakes





Hey everyone! So I have been reading this thread for months and trying to decide if I wanted to attempt this. I finally decided to do it, and I love the way it turned out. I have even gone as far as making my trac lights blue as well. I could use some opinions as I am trying to decide to leave all the buttons red or change them over to blue as well. I have never been a big fan of red but seeing the red and blue together Im kinda liking the scheme.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

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I'd leave them be, unless you decide to do all of them blue (door lock/window switch, steering wheel controls, HVAC) I left mine red as well.

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KeithGTP03 said:
I'd leave them be, unless you decide to do all of them blue (door lock/window switch, steering wheel controls, HVAC) I left mine red as well.
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Thanks, I figured it was more pain than it was worth. I like the mix of blue and reds in the pillar gauges. What do you have in there? I notice you're in Houston, its nice to see another Texan with great taste
 
Very good looking... I left mine red too, too hard to get rid of all the red in the car so it helps tie it together kinda. I am gonna do my foglight switch in blue here pretty soon though. I just picked up a spare last week to practice with and after taking it apart it looks really easy, maybe I'll do a write-up on that too.
 
i have done all my switches now, in the fogs i did white lighting and the same goes for were there was red it is either blue or white, also added a light in my mirror that shines down on cup holders kinda lke most pontiacs i know have
 


Jteske88 said:
i have done all my switches now, in the fogs i did white lighting and the same goes for were there was red it is either blue or white, also added a light in my mirror that shines down on cup holders kinda lke most pontiacs i know have
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Any write ups or material list? If I had a materials list I wouldn't have to buy double everything just to have a test subject lol And post some pics of your setup, I'd like to see the other switches and whatnot...
 
Kejross said:
Any write ups or material list? If I had a materials list I wouldn't have to buy double everything just to have a test subject lol And post some pics of your setup, I'd like to see the other switches and whatnot...
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I did my fog light switch when I first got the car, its pretty straight forward. Sorry I don't exactly remember the part#s and such, I didn't think I was going to go apes**T with the swap. I know the stock is a 25 mini light. Seeing as mine has burned again I will be changing to a small led.

Now I can help as far as the color on the switches and any thing else that Pontiac decided to dip in red. Berryman's Chemtool Choke Cleaner and a cotton swab will pull the color right off. You want to use as small of a swab as you can so that you only take off what you want. My first one even took the grey out of it. After the Chemtool I used 1100 grit sand paper bound around a swab and lightly sanded untill I had what I wanted.

The results might look a little milky depending on how much paitence you put into it. I came back after all of this and used some 3M liquid polishing compound and the swabs and lightly buffed it and it looked good.

All you need from there is some translucent paint and blue masking tape.

I hope this helps some of you out.

As for the cluster I have an old cluster that I bought just for the needles, so I took the face off of it, I am going to cut a piece of the same blue plastic I used on the dic and make a backdrop for my glow gauges so that all of the warning lights are blue too.
 
just ask me and ill help you out, anything in particular or? but i will let you know most of my work was problem solving in the process but i think it all turned out great
 
Jteske88 said:
just ask me and ill help you out, anything in particular or? but i will let you know most of my work was problem solving in the process but i think it all turned out great
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That's me, problem solving in the process... I just hate tearing something outta my car not knowing exactly what parts I need to get it done and back in before I gotta go somewhere again. I'll probably just keep getting junkyard parts to work on then it's just a simple swap of the old part for the new modded one. Post some pics of it all though still, I wanna see what it looks like with them all done...
 
well thats how it goes, when i did my dimmer/ headlight switch i was told i would have to cut and it didnt come apart, well i looked at it and tried and peal back the front and sure as **** it was just like the hud dimmer. really easy, and i been at work since 3 ill take some shot in the dark garage for yall. anything in particular you wanna see first?
 


im planning on doing my DIC thanks to this write up but i was also wanting to do the rest of my switches and everything just maybe not all at once. Does anyone happen to know how many bulbs i would need for all the switches on the doors(its a 2 door btw),the lights around the DIC, and the lights behind my cluster? and any others i missed?
 
Kejross said:
okay so i saw this mod in another post and after asking around and not getting much if any response i decided to just tear into it and see what happened. and why not? i got nothing but time = outta work for 4-6 months from a bike wreck and massive shoulder surgery

so first off take out and completely apart til it looks like this:
View attachment 2202


then cut all these pins like this to flip the lcd open:
(i didnt wanna desolder all those but its an option)
View attachment 2203


then remove the backing of the lcd with a razor like this:
View attachment 2204

then i used carb cleaner but paint thinner would be better to remove the red coloring from the piece


next step i took a generic dvd case that was blue and cut a piece to put behind it like this:
View attachment 2205
View attachment 2206


then just stuck them behind the lcd and resoldered the pins on the side really sloppily like this:
View attachment 2207


then i went and bought my leds from two different radio shacks cause they didnt have enough at one store. i got 10mm blue leds for behind lcd and red leds for behind the buttons and some 560ohm 1/2 watt resistors like these:
View attachment 2208
View attachment 2209

then drilled out the openings a bit with a 3/8"s bit and tucked them in like this:
View attachment 2210


now when putting them in the polarity matters so i had to go plug it in and check and this is what i found out:

View attachment 2211

keep in mind the longer of the two leads is the positive side...

continued:
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When he says he used carb cleaner to clean the piece. What piece does he mean? The actual screen? And do you need to be careful at all while doing that?
 
Been a while but there's a lens in there with red paint or tint or whatever and the carb cleaner disolves the red so you can wipe it off and make the lens colorless. Otherwise you would have purple if you were doing blue.
 
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