14 replies to this topic

[UseHerName]

My last car was a MK4 Astra and the dials as standard looked like so:

 

After various experiments I was looking at plasma dials but i found that on eBay they looked pretty tacky:

 

No offence to anyone with that style but it's just not for me. Then a guy on the Astra forum I was on at the time put me on to a website called Xtuners and I ended up with:

 

With that I also bought needle illuminating rings to turn those red. The mileage display was switched out for a quad-SMD LED from crazyleds.

 

I was looking at something similar for the Mondeo. I got in touch with them as I noticed they had mats for the ST220 but no ST TDCI. This side of it wasn't a problem for them. They pointed out the raised portion of my dials though - around the outer edge.

 

I hadn't noticed it

 

I'm not sure if that would end up looking like a problem and it's a bit costly to gamble and find out that it ends up looking wrong.

 

 

So am just wondering if anyone here has gone down the Xtuners route?

 

If not then i'm sure many of you will have gone the route of LEDs. I believe you need to sand the mat back on these? No different to my last car in that case (if you wanted to use LEDs you had to do that).

Ideally I would like to go the Xtuners route but if that's a no-go then I wondered what results you guys got with LEDs? My brother has done his with multicoloured LEDs with the main rings having red coated needles and the smaller ones being white/clear. Not really the look I want at all and i'm a terrible visualiser so figured i'd ask here

[raynkar]

Traditionally people swapped their black dial faces for white or silver Lockwood brand faces.

These days there are multiple companies offering faces, either ready made or totally bespoke.

 

Swapping to LED lighting is also fairly common, and I’ve seen them changed to just about every colour, as well as changing the LCD display colour.

 

The dial surrounds can be changed to, to swap from normal silver to the ridged ST surrounds or chrome aftermarket surrounds.

 

Mk3 clusters are also plug and play as long as the symbols are mostly the same, so some people fit 220 dials into other cars, petrol or diesel.

 

There is quite a cottage industry of people who make colour changed clusters and switches etc, so you can do whatever you want.

 

Have a look for Chaz Coombes on facebook for his ‘LED installs’ vids.

[raynkar]

This was the cluster I had in a previous diesel.

 

White faces and chrome surrounds.

 

As my mk3 is a 220 it has pale silver faces as standard. I made new hands for the time clock with red hands so they match the needles in the cluster. Most people just changed the hand illumination LED to red, but then the hands aren’t red when the lights are off.

 

 

[PURPLE_2L_LX]

Fitted LEDs and a few weeks later removed them and put standard bulbs

back in, started flickering and that smell of hot parts.

 

Dont touch cheap LED's.   

[Mondygeek]

My first car was a mk4 astra then I bought the mondeo after wrapping it around a tree. I fitted sxi white dial clocks and loved them. Also fitted a the astra h vxr steering wheel

[hardy1812]

This was the cluster I had in a previous diesel.

White faces and chrome surrounds.
EA62AA63-0743-492D-A8AB-F9A505DED654.jpeg

As my mk3 is a 220 it has pale silver faces as standard. I made new hands for the time clock with red hands so they match the needles in the cluster. Most people just changed the hand illumination LED to red, but then the hands aren’t red when the lights are off.

CD2ECE26-9296-44F8-AE21-8C4ACF88B432.jpeg

Now I do like the look of the dials,,, was the clock hands hard to do ??,,,

[raynkar]

 

This was the cluster I had in a previous diesel.

White faces and chrome surrounds.
EA62AA63-0743-492D-A8AB-F9A505DED654.jpeg

As my mk3 is a 220 it has pale silver faces as standard. I made new hands for the time clock with red hands so they match the needles in the cluster. Most people just changed the hand illumination LED to red, but then the hands aren’t red when the lights are off.

CD2ECE26-9296-44F8-AE21-8C4ACF88B432.jpeg

Now I do like the look of the dials,,, was the clock hands hard to do ??,,,

 

The clock hands are an ongoing project, I just need a good amount of time set aside to continue it.

 

The show so far:

https://talkford.com...me-clock-hands/

[hardy1812]

Mate I’ve just looked at the Lockwood dials and there only £29.... are they easy to fit ??? Do you have to pop needles off ?? how do you know how to put them back on in the correct position if you do ??? I want them really badly now 😂😂

[hardy1812]

As soon as I saw the thread I remember it now 😂😂,, they look Fooking awesome mate

[UseHerName]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I have these clocks in my ST:

 

I'm used to black dials. Started out with white in my Astra (had a 1.8 SRi) but the whites would hotspot when illuminated with SMDs or it was just a poor colour covering when done with LEDs. I switched out to black dials as I knew you could illuminate just the numbers with these.

 

I saw these dials from a MK3. Which MK3 had these:

 

I prefer the styling of the numbers in those clocks ... but not the temperature gauge. Prefer the numbers on the temp gauge.

 

Regards dial surrounds - did any units come with surrounds? I bought some for my last car and they looked ok but then i bought a new unit which came with surrounds as part of the unit and the difference in quality was clear. The ones i bought were clearly looking like stick-on ones whereas the inbuilt ones curved inwards and looked better quality. Hard to explain it in words.

 

 

Here's an important question - are all MK3 clocks the exact same?

By that, and sorry to refer to my last car again but it's all I have as a reference - the white clocks and the black clocks were not the same (and i don't mean colour). I bought a new LED converted unit but noticed the speed was out. The faster I went the more the speed was out. I was doing 100mph or whatever yet my GPS said 80. It felt like 80 too.

On investigation the markings were either out or the PCB was programmed differently. You could not put a black dial mat on a PCB that came with a white dial mat (and vice versa) because the speed would be incorrect.

Anything similar with the MK3 Mondeo?

 

 

Fitted LEDs and a few weeks later removed them and put standard bulbs

back in, started flickering and that smell of hot parts.

 

Dont touch cheap LED's.   

 

Agreed. I've bought cheap LEDs before and they're not worth the savings.

I've bought good quality from crazyleds for a while now. I fitted their quadSMD LED in to my mileage display in my last car back in 2011. It's still in there perfectly clear.

 

 

My first car was a mk4 astra then I bought the mondeo after wrapping it around a tree. I fitted sxi white dial clocks and loved them. Also fitted a the astra h vxr steering wheel

 

Was you on AOC by any chance?

It's been a while but i remember someone doing a steering wheel mod for the MK4. I was going to say it was the H wheel but come to think of it I actually think it was the J. Took a bit of work but he got it in.

 

 

 

 

Back on topic .... Is there any way to change the mileage on the MK3 clocks? Such as if i buy in a new unit to work on. I would imagine not but doesn't hurt to ask. That's part reason why I was able to fiddle around with the clock units on my last car so much - I could make the mileage read whatever I wanted it to. 123456, 800085, anything. Though I always kept tally and made it read true as my OCD wouldn't have let it go otherwise. lol.