I need to fix the lights in my speedo needle and other dash needles.
When I do, I'm thinking about tinting the window that you look through to view your Speedo and other needles and guages. I remember on the early LS that it was almost totally black until you turned on the car (I have a '95 ES300). They really looked like holograms and had me fooled... maybe they were.

That's why I want to tint the guage window (after the needle and backlight fix of course); so that the guages and needles would be blacked out until the car was turned on. Someone in here said the instrument cluster wasn't that interesting anyway, but if the needles and all were just hanging there in the middle of blackness, they would look interesting indeed.

Has anyone done this?

Would you advise against tinting that window? Why?

Thanks,
Josh :

 

The plastic piece infront of the guage cluster in the es300 is already tinted very darkly. The reason you can see the needles during the daytime is the reflection from the needles and the fact that they are colored red.

 

yep, the tint is extremely dark in our cars, which I find annoying, as I would prefer a clear peice of plastic! Especially with my custom set up! Sometimes it is very hard to see the chrome needles during the day, well not really the needles, but the speed I'm travelling at which is annoying!

 

I wouldn't recommend that you tint the cluster window any darker than it already is. You'd probably have a hard time seeing the gauges at all, even at night.

 

Mine is almost clear. If anything, it is only lightly smoked.

The way the pic looks on the left side is what mine looks like in the day.

 

on my 93, it's pretty damn dark when its off

 

If you take your cluster out and compare it to a non tinted one...you'll see it is VERY heavily tinted. Of course you can see everything when you shine a light into it..but during the day, the cluster overhange usually blocks out most of the sun.

 

I think mine IS non-tinted. Keep in mind, the backlighting for the tach on the left is out and it is only slightly darker than the above picture. I can tell it is "smoked" a little, but it seems VERY little. I guess I'll know for sure when I pull it out to replace the backlights.

Would someone like to post a pic of their dash showing how dark the tint is?

 

I didn't think mine was tinted either until I removed the cluster from the dash and took the window off. You'll see when you do the same.

 

Well, you were right. Tint was too much. I tried some "window-sticker" tint that gave 5% light transmission (limo dark). That was definitely too dark. It didn't give me the hologram or hidden effect that I was looking for, and I couldn't see anything in the daytime.

Does anyone remember the instrument cluster on the early LS400's?
Were they holographic? How did they achieve that look?