Custom Gauge Overlays?

Ok, so I've been cruising here for a while and finally sucked it up and made an account. I used to be an active member of a Ford truck site back before becoming enlightened. One of the guys on that forum had scanned the F150 gauge overlay into his computer and made it possible to add your own graphics and colors and whathaveyou and print them out, trim, and install. I know companies like Black Cat make custom overlays for our trucks, but I was looking for a DIY option. Has anyone here tried this? I'm thinking of doing the LED mod and may give it a shot while I got it all apart, but was just curious if anyone's tried something similar before or if its even feasible with the design of the cluster.

 

Don't think anybody has done that... You'd be a pioneer me thinks. Good luck!

 

If you build it, they will come.

 

Thanks for the quick follow ups! Probably gonna be a couple of weeks before I tear into it, but will definately document the **hopefully successful** process. About to order 1000's of LED's now....

 

I'd consider it, but it doesn't look like he makes them for the 4spd auto.

 

I installed one of the BlackCat units.

It's a nice product.

 

Yeah, I understand Black Cat makes them. My main question, I suppose I didn't pose like I should have, is can our guage clusters be disassembled to the point that I could place the guage face on a scanner and edit it so I could manufacture my own guage face and perhaps pass the file around to other members to do their own. This was something I've seen done on other trucks, wondering if it was possible on ours. Sorry for being a n00b. I've never taken the clusters apart, nor have I seen this discussed on the site before (did a thorough search) but a previous forum I was on did this and it was pretty cool and a big $$$ saver, which I'm all about.

 

I want one that says DERP!

 

Does this require needle removal?

 

Yes

This is a write up I did on XRU.

http://www.xr-underground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50353

 

Thanks for link

 

yes see live below from Coupe that shows how to remove the gauge cluster...
that would be a cool idea on changing the face...

 

Order my LED's from oznium, should be here Thursday. Hopefully I'll have time to get it all tore into this weekend and at least try to scan the gauge faces. I'm sure it'll take some expiramenting with printing but I hear certain vinyls will work well with printer ink and resist fading pretty well.

 

So I took everything apart and got the overlays on the scanner and apparently my prehistoric flat scanner is not mac compatible... put everything back together and now my speedometer bounces between 8-10 mph once I hit about 15mph or so (just a guess) and won't go higher. took it back apart and the needle spins all the way around. Did I break the servo somehow? Any ideas?

 

did you make sure to place a piece of tape where the needle sat at "0" before removing it all?
if you dont put them back exactly where they where, they will not read correctly

 

So how would having the needle in the wrong spot make my speedometer only display 0 (bouncing) until it jumps to 6mph, and 9mph (bouncing). There's no real in-betweens and I know I had to hit 45-50 driving it around.

 

yikes... hope you get it figured out.

 

since they have a "stop" part to them you might have moved them

when you have the dash out, does the needle stop on the 0 when youre slowly turning it counterclockwise?

 

Got it figured out. Saw another thread on here where the guy had a similar problem. Wound the needle around clockwise twice and it seems to be pretty accurate but its a little more "jerky" than I remember. Guess the kids got a hold of it while i had it out on the table.

 

Glad ya got it figured out. So just by "winding" it, the problem is fixed?