Interior lighting change - complete

In my goal of changing everything on the dash to black from silver and the lights from amber to white and blue.
Dash gauges and radio were pretty fun to change the leds out compared to the temperature controls.
So I took everything I came across on the forms and some ideas I had on changing the A/C control dial's colors and came out with this:


The short story on getting it done. Sanded all the amber off on the dials. I took little cut outs of all the images on the dials to paint white and cover everything else up, to block the light out. Then photoshoped a picture of the dials, changed the background from silver to black and cut out the images to print as white. Printed it on clear vinyl and then installed. The blue is from blue tape in the back of the dials. Same thing for the A/C and circulation button, printed on clear vinyl. This is probably going to lose you if you have not seen the guts of the dials. I am still not happy with the uneven light display from the LEDs I put in for the dials, but they are a clearer white than the bulbs that are normally in there.

3-6-11
pulled the blue tape from behind the icons and left white

Write up for the process
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/li...back-light-face-color-change.html#post3492379

 

Dayyyyyyyum! That looks hella good man. Props to ya!

 

looks amazing! do mine

 

LOOKS SICK! do you have pics of the process itself?

 

I ordered the vinyl online and printed it with my inkjet printer on the photo setting. I sprayed it with regular old flat/matte clear in a spray can for the finish.
http://www.texascraft.com/hps/product.php?productid=16497&cat=283&page=

I will try to get the pictures uploaded and posted soon.

 

That looks awesome!

 

a full write up on this would earn you all sorts of points on this forum....

 

I have been labeling and uploading the pictures for one. I should have something up soon.

 

process now

 

so when you sanded down the amber, you must have sanded down some of the black by accident correct? and then the blacked out vinyl was to correct that?

 

Some by accident but mainly a hazard of taking out the amber. It has to be smooth for the sanding not to show through when putting the vinyl back on in the end. I printed the dials in black on the vinyl to black out my entire dash, and I thought that would be the best way to block out the light from behind. It also matches my radio. I am not sure if my printer would print out in silver very well. Maybe a better printer or print shop could print in silver and the background could be done in blue.

 

How many hours did this take? Looks amazing. Like it came from the factory that color!

 

WOW

 

That looks very nice!

 

got it, I've been working on mine, but I sanded too far trying to get rid of the amber, and messed up the little graphics.

I'm thinking of getting a print shop to copy it from the front, so the amber isn't there, then just having them print it on some plastic/vinyl with white graphics, and using tape like you did.

 

To many to add up, I didn't work on it for long amounts of time. A couple of hours here and there. This was a second set of controls. I had quite a few trial runs.

That should work pretty easy, just getting the sizing right when printing. I am sure print shops can do it.

 

05+ climate control light mod write up

I finally finished the write up. That felt like it took longer than the mod itself.

 

meann like sell???

 

Sorry, I don't have a set for sale. I had bought a second set so I could still have a full set while I did the process, still going to hang on to it as a backup if I improve the set I am using right now.