Swapping Gauge Faces

[golana]

Well, my brother found a sport corolla at pick n pull a while back, and took the gauge faces. he just popped his needles off and swapped the faces, im quite hesitant to do this, as i dont want to screw with the needles...

is there any way to swap the faces without messing up the needle position?

is there any tutorials on how to swap the faces?

[GaryGoatse]

Pretty sure there is a do it yourself in the thread on the first page. If not then either:

a) ask your brother to help you

b) take out your gauges and plastic covers and then not where your needles are pointing just to be safe. Pull them up and then unscrew the gauge faces and put the new ones on. When you run your car they should be in the same area as before (you should make sure you have half a tank, or a fuel tank, or an empty tank so its easier to note if something happened).

It's not that big of a deal if you screw it up because you can always reset them by hand like i mentioned above (full tank, then put the gauge to full and it will be fine) or get car to operating temperature (15 minutes of idling or driving should do it) and put the gauge in the middle, BUT if i'm not mistaken the coolant temperature gauge will go down to 0 and rest on the little stick when you take the gauge set out.

have fun, tell us how it goes and bring back pics

[iskate631]

hah speak of the devil i did the same exact thing a couple weeks ago. i had the 02 sport with a black and red interior, but the red guage faces i didnt like as it didnt show the redline and i couldnt change the color. i had a 98 le so i took the faces from taht with the white face and left the red needles. looked alot better, but i found when i turned my key to accessorry my tach went up to 1000 and my speedo went up to 10mph. with the car off . i drove it once and was kinda amused to see my car reading 100mph when i wasnt close. i have had the car off the road for a little while so i never got around to fixing it, but if you decide to do it just trial and error.

temperature - set to ever so slightly under half when car is fully warmed up.
gas - fill the tank and set it fully to the top.(dont do an empty tank, thats no good)
speedo/tach - just keep going till they rest right on 0.

it will be a pain cause the needles are like electronically spring wound so even if you put it at the very bottom of the pin they will still rise up.



also while i was in there i swapped out the green plastic for the blinkers and replaced them with clear plexi glass painted blue for some blue blinkers

[GaryGoatse]

lol on my gauge set when i press defrost it turns on the left turn signal(not flashing just on) on the dash but everything else works fine, all my turn signals work lmao its just on the dash its weird

[Milky]

iskate here is how you reset them. with the car off, but the key in the on position they will jump up to the 10mph and 1000 rpm. take the needles off and reset them to 0. put it back together. i had this problem when i swapped my speedo to the white face. i did this and it fixed it. its dead on.

[iskate631]

oo awesome alright thanks man