ok this is my first write up so go easy on me. so ive seen a couple pics around the forums of members gauge needle painted, there is nothing wrong with that however I find it a bit ugly/trashy when they just paint over the needle, it just doesn't look right/clean.
I wanted to show people the better alternative so here we go!

what you will need is: cotton swab, razor blade, and your choice of paint whatever color your heart desires even sparkly glitter paint . i'm just going with plain and simple red. this is just some oil paint I had laying around. it'll do just fine



im assuming ever1 knows how to get to your gauges so im not going over that. for this write up I had an extra cluster laying around you do NOT need to remove your whole cluster. you can leave it in place I know some of the older models have cable driven speedos and its more of a pain to take off than us 90's + guys.


once you get to the gauges you will have to remove the hex screws holding the cluster lens, in this case there were 6 im not to sure about older models.


once you get the lens off I like to put the needle down to 0, some needles will not stay where you want them that's fine just leave them where they are, DO NOT force anything, be gentle. its not worth breaking anything.


before we go any further I will be pulling needles so if you don't feel comfortable doing this don't. you WILL have to do some playing with it afterwards to get it in the right spot. this is why I set it to 0, it makes it easier to put the needle in the right place. its fairly simple just takes a couple drives to dial it in, if you have one of those signs that show your speed around the neighborhood you are golden. the other gauges are a bit trickier but if you know how your car usually runs that helps. its pretty much the same process off playing with it and putting it in the right spot. it might take a couple tries.
the easies way to pull a needle is with a fork.. yes a fork.. just put the fork under the needle and rock it back and forth gently should come right out. you can do this with your hand as well. just remember to be gentle and pull from the center never from the needle itself.
once you get it off you can start scraping off the old paint with the razor. you don't want to dig into the plastic just enough to scrape the old stuff off

once you get to that black sleeve it will be pretty difficult to scrape off the old paint. it helps to hold the base of the needle with 2 fingers and with another GENTLY push the needle up a tad so you can get at it. if you want to take it all off that's best but if you cant seem to get it you can go up to the line I drew on the needle. anything on the needle side of that line will show.

when you are done scraping the old stuff off you can put the new stuff on. a little goes a long way. I used the cotton swab as a paint brush. you can use a regular paint brush if you want but you might get the brush lines in it. I like the swab better.


when you are applying the paint try to get a nice even coat. if you get any on the sides just run your finger a long the sides to wipe it off (or tissue paper whatever you got). if one coat isn't enough and you have uneven coverage wait for the paint to dry and give it another coat. 2-3 coats will give you the true color of the paint. I only did one coat here cause these aren't going in my car just yet I will be giving them another coat or 2



once you let the paint dry you can just push the needle back in GENTLY!!!


now just repeat the process with all the other ones once you get it all done just dial them in and you are good to go!

I hope you all enjoyed my first write up. if you have any questions just leave a comment and ill try to help out as best I can.

 

looks real good! got any night time pictures?

 

the gauges in my car at the moment have red LED's in them so wont be able to tell the difference but I think the cluster I used for the write up still has regular bulbs in it ill see if I can post some pics of it up later

 

ok so just went out and switched out my gauges so you could see them lit up. the camera makes it look a bit orange but I assure you in person they look red.


you can see how the lights are still illuminating the needle instead of blocking the light as it would if you were to paint over the needle.


its been so long since I have seen my gauges in stock lighting!!! im so glad I went with the LEDs much brighter


im sorry for all the blurry pics I don't have the best camera out there. it does horridly in low light

 

Wow they look great. I might have to take the time and do this myself.

 

Great job, that really looks good. I've always wanted to do this to my cluster but was too worried about getting the needles back in the right place. Thanks for posting this up, I'll have to give it a whirl when warmer weather rolls around

 

it really is worth the effort

also ive pulled the needles probably 4-5 trying to find red needles at junk yards only to find out none of them fit. ive always been able to get them in the right place it just takes a couple minutes!

 

Another option to consider would be testors candy apple red spray paint.

It is translucent and would let a nice red color through.

 

I did this to my needles a few years back. I used some 800 grit sandpaper to take the paint off and the used one of those Testors paint pens for models to paint the back sides. While the were out I decided I didn't like how wide the tips of the needles were so carefully sanded them down to points. While I'm sure it does nothing for improving the accuracy, I think it looks a lot nicer than the wide tips they have stock.