I'm thinking of spray-painting the bulbs behind the gauge cluster with tint spray. Reason being, I don't want to have to dim my whole dash to prevent the bulbs' light from seepin through to my reverse indiglo's.

so my question is this, will spray painting the bulbs have any adverse effects? will it cause them to overheat? will they burn?

thanks~

 

just go out and buy the brighter bulbs...I don't know where to find those small ones though. Tell me if you do...

 

Naw... mebe i'm not bein clear, my bad.
basically i want my dash cluster to be dark, while my dash is bright cuz i got reverse indigs
and the bulbs behind the reverse indigs are making them look ugly but i dont want to dim the bulbs, cuz then the whole dash goes dark. so i want to tint them so they're darker w/o having to dim the dash

 

Go for it...what's the worst that can happen? I painted the bulbs in my display to change the illumination from green to red (better for night vision) over 2 years ago with model paint. No fading yet. Also, I wouldn't spray them, get some model paint and a small brush, much easier to control where the paint goes.

/bill

 

Instead of painting them, why not just pull the bulbs out. Since you have the reverse indiglos illuminating your instrument cluster, you don't need the bulbs back there at all. Just save them until something goes wrong with your gauges, or you decide that you don't want them anymore.

 

I tried that, but the needles end up being really dark and invisible. If there is at least some light illuminating from behind the gauge cluster, the needles are at least somewhat lit up.

 

yup not a good idea unless you want to get a heads up display

 

reverse indiglos tend to look a little funny when they are at full brightness... light dosent go through them, rather the light that is produced behind the face by the electro-luminesence tends to seep through the white/silver faces... theres nothing that will combat this except to turn the brightness down. Taking out/tinting the bulbs behind it wont do anything because thats not whats causing the problem.

 

See, I don't think that's wut is happening in my case. I have my reverse indigs on BRIGHT, and only thing I adjust is the bulbs with the dimmer. the needles themselves are lit up by the bulbs behind the gauge cluster (trust me, i've experimented by pulling them out and putting them back in). it's this light that is actually seeping in around the gauge circles and making them look crappy (imagine a solar eclipse, that's what it looks like only to a lesser degree). When i pull out the bulbs, problem solved - only the needles are DARK.

that's why i want to tint the bulbs, so i can have my Dash bright but my gauge cluster dark. hope that makes sense.