DIY "KNG" Custom Gauge Faces

[KNG SNKE]

Dodge Viper Custom "KNG" Gauge Faces
Please pay attention to all warnings!
WARNINGS
1.Proceed at your own risk. Any damage to your gauges is YOUR OWN FAULT and cannot be blamed on me.
2.Take your time opening the gauges. The end around the face will be sharp as you get close to getting them open.
3.Be extremely careful with the needles. No need to apply a ton of force, they will come off.
4.LABEL your gauges. Write on the back of them what they are.
5.Custom gauge faces do not make your Viper faster so don't ask and I don't care.
6. Make red gauges faces at your own risk. Adding red to Vipers WILL slow them down.

Let's get started.
I highly recommend getting a set of spare gauges though it is not necessary. Pictured below is a set of spare gauges.

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Make sure to take photos of your OEM gauge faces with the car at least warmed up idling so you can have a reference point for the needles once you reinstall them. (Do not go off of my images)

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Once you either remove your gauges from your dash or have your spare set out you are ready to begin. (There is a write-up on proper dash removal in the DIY section so I don't feel there is a need to revisit it. If you cannot remove your dash then you probably should not do this mod)

Notice the gauge face surround is black and has a lip that curls around as pictured below. Take a flat head screwdriver and slowly peel this lip back. You will see marks in the housing of the gauge but it is not hurting it. Continue all the way around until the screwdriver is no longer useful. Take a set of needle nose or regular pliers to flatten the edge around the face. This is where it will be sharp.

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[KNG SNKE]

Now that you have the entire black surround flat and pried open you can carefully remove the gauge. (You do not need to remove the rubber for the trip meter in the speedometer)
Notice that the gauge has 3 pieces. The housing, the white surround and the black face with the glass. At this time label the gauge housing so you remember which gauge it is.

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Once all 6 gauges have been separated it is time to remove the needles and gauge faces. There is a trick to the needles. 2 spoons, one on either end and give them a quick twist. On the needle itself there is a black case that will pop off sometimes. This is OK, after you remove the needle just super glue that case back to the needle.

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Once the needle is removed make sure you remove the needle stopper on the tachometer and speedometer. Don't lose this piece. (On the speedometer there is no need to remove the trip reset plastic rod) The OEM gauge faces are held in place by a small piece of tack glue so carefully pull them off. Line all of your OEM gauge faces up on a piece of white paper and prepare them for scanning. The higher the resolution your computer can handle the better. I scanned mine at 1200dpi which is 10000x14000 or so resolution.

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[KNG SNKE]

The next step is test prints. Test print your gauges to make sure they are the right size. You will have to play around with the scanner to get them right so make your adjustments to the scan and repeat.

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Once you have the right size figured out for your test prints it's time to move on. Start editing the gauge face however you want it in Photoshop (If you are good enough Adobe Illustrator is a much better program to use but it was above my capabilities to use it). You can add graphics, pictures, numbers, whatever your little heart desires. Once you get a final edit ready to print you can save it as a high resolution jpeg file. I used matte paper to print on with the best photo setting but you can print on glossy photo paper as well.

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Once your printed make sure to let your gauges dry. You are going to do a quick cutout of the gauges using scissors. Once you have cut your gauges out lay them face down on laminate plastic. Make sure they are laying flat. Take a second sheet of laminate plastic and apply it to the back of the gauges. This is just for rigidity. Make sure you smooth out the laminate on the gauge face for a shiny look.

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Once you have all the edges cut out of the gauges go ahead and cut out the center white dot for the needle to slide through. Please note the speedometer has 2 rectangle cuts you have to make and it is best to use your OEM gauge as a template. This part is very hard.

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[KNG SNKE]

After your done with the speedometer just place your gauge faces in the slot where they go. You can add some model glue where the old tacky glue was but it really is unnecessary. If you cut the faces out the right size then they will sit in place and when you reassemble the front shroud on the gauge it will hold the gauge face down.
After you reinstall your new gauge faces make sure you install your needles CAREFULLY and correct. You will need to calibrate your needles to your car. This is where the pictures that you took in the beginning come in handy. The easiest way to recalibrate your needles is by plugging the gauges in and warm your car up during idle. Once your car is warm put the needles where they are suppose to go. There are many ways to calibrate your needles, vec, obd2, etc so use whatever is best for you. AFTER, I say again, AFTER your needles are calibrated go ahead and reinstall the clear plastic face on the gauge and use a small hammer to hammer the black surround flat. Make sure to set your gauge on a towel so you don't mess it up.

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Once you are done with all this install and enjoy your new gauge faces. If you're interested in doing your own gauge faces and want to save time on the editing feel free to pm me and we can discuss. Please note this does take some time to do. Also if you decide to do a black gauge face with a light colored lettering you can actually print out a second set of gauge faces on plain paper using black on the gauge face to reduce the amount of light bleed through. If you look even the OEM gauges have light that bleed through so no issue.

Other things to mention. For light colored gauges faces such as mine you will see some of the interior outline of the gauge at night. Its not bad but you can see a little bit as seen on my other thread. Also inside the gauge faces there is a white ring. You can separate that ring from the gauge face and paint it. I will be doing this.

For the SRT guys if someone wants to donate me a full set of used gauges I can get a working template for those as well and offer them to you as well. The gauges should separate the same exact way.
Any further questions just shoot me a PM.

 

[GTLaser]

Very nice write up.... Good work on the gauges, they came out nice. Are you going to post any installed pics?

 

[KNG SNKE]

I live in an apartment now in Rhode Island as opposed to my house in Virginia so I don't have everyday access to my car (its kept in a storage 35 minutes away). When I have enough free time they will be installed in my car. I am really happy with the way they turned out. If someone wants to see a mock up potentially for their car just post your request.

 

[ViperTony]

Awesome work King! Are you also switching to the led lights for the gauges too?

 

[KNG SNKE]

I have not decided about LEDs yet. The oem lighting does fine with these faces. On a side note I just tried to get night shots of all 6 and the mosquitoes are out in full force. I managed to get a shot of the tachometer and speedometer.

 

[ZYellow01RT]

Great work, King....I think this will be my next project. You have explained every step very well, and I can't wait to get started.

Now I just have to brush up on the "dash removal" process, which will probably be another learning experience as well...

Thanks again!

 

[FrgMstr]

Hate to tell you this, but someone urinated on your gauges faces. Those are all yellow.

 

[99 R/T 10]

The gauges look great John, you did a fantastic job.

 

[KNG SNKE]

Hate to tell you this, but someone urinated on your gauges faces. Those are all yellow.

Aww pobrecita you still butt hurt about the red jokes? Lol. Guess I could produce some bloody ones for ya. Actually the red face and the blue face ones look just as awesome.


Andrew removing the dash is really easy. Takes less then 10 minutes and removing the gauges is another 2. Feel free to pm me when you start this project and I will be able to answer any questions you have. I am also able to print sets out at peoples requests. Would be very cheap.

 

[FrgMstr]

Aww pobrecita you still butt hurt about the red jokes? Lol. Guess I could produce some bloody ones for ya. Actually the red face and the blue face ones look just as awesome.

Seriously, your printing job is horrible. Or the camera used is horrible. You would have been much better served by having those done at a local print shop with a quality laser printing service. But alas, the only one that really needs to look good is the temp gauge, because with such little airflow over the engine you had better be checking that a lot.

And you never print graphics from jpegs you silly rabbit.

WHOOSH! (Was that a red viper speeding by you or your radiator overheating?)

 

[KNG SNKE]

I am not a professional nor do I aspire to be a professional gauge face manufacturer. Your attempts to out smart or even out wit me are horrible. I have already talked to a couple folks on how to do this and this is the easiest method. For custom gauge faces you wouldn't print them on Matte paper either but guess what, it works, it looks great, it fits anyone's budget. And to top it off the resolution of the gauges is over 10k x 14k. Very high resolution. I already know the ropes on making them professionally after talking to J Tiff but its not in my interest to do so. Spend 20 bucks and have awesome gauges or spend a couple hundred for professional design then another 200 for professional printing. The gauges already look very clear and sharp. The photos were taken from my cell phone so they appear grainy. They are nothing but clear in person and look much better then oem. A bunch of my locals have already seen the original mock ups and really liked them. My only complaint is bleed through on the lighter colors but i have plans for that.

On a side personal note your red viper has never sped by anything let alone my viper. My car could have no wheels and no motor and it still would run yours lol. Keep in mind I can do a set of faces for you that REALISTICALLY reflect your top speed of 20mph. I know I am quoting your speed a bit high but I'm in a be nice mood.

 

[ZYellow01RT]

Don't pay attention to that Frog Mastrbtr or whatever that name means...

Just another attempt on her part to compensate for a small, well....you know.

Some of those red owners just don't know when to give up when they're

Your gauges look great and I'll definitely PM you when I get started. Thanks again.

I am not a professional nor do I aspire to be a professional gauge face manufacturer. Your attempts to out smart or even out wit me are horrible. I have already talked to a couple folks on how to do this and this is the easiest method. For custom gauge faces you wouldn't print them on Matte paper either but guess what, it works, it looks great, it fits anyone's budget. And to top it off the resolution of the gauges is over 10k x 14k. Very high resolution. I already know the ropes on making them professionally after talking to J Tiff but its not in my interest to do so. Spend 20 bucks and have awesome gauges or spend a couple hundred for professional design then another 200 for professional printing. The gauges already look very clear and sharp. The photos were taken from my cell phone so they appear grainy. They are nothing but clear in person and look much better then oem. A bunch of my locals have already seen the original mock ups and really liked them. My only complaint is bleed through on the lighter colors but i have plans for that.

On a side personal note your red viper has never sped by anything let alone my viper. My car could have no wheels and no motor and it still would run yours lol. Keep in mind I can do a set of faces for you that REALISTICALLY reflect your top speed of 20mph. I know I am quoting your speed a bit high but I'm in a be nice mood.

 

[Phun70]

Those look fantastic!!! Great write-up.. Thanks.

 

[KNG SNKE]

I don't pay much attention to him. He is still butt hurt from a yellow v red joke in one of his threads where he singled me out (even though there were 2 other sarcastic remarks before mine) so he follows my posts around and trolls.

Thanks Phun.

 

[FrgMstr]

I have already talked to a couple folks on how to do this and this is the easiest method.

Good strategy. Would not expect anything less. Don't be all butthurt about the criticism of your work, but it is not great and no one with any sense would print from a jpeg for work like that and you will have longevity issues as well, but being a yellow owner, we know you are slow.

Your wit is commanding as well silly rabbit. You bring it to the level of jousting with Q-tips.

 

[ViperTony]

Let's get this thread back on topic folks. I have no desire to babysit today.

 

[ZYellow01RT]

Good strategy. Would not expect anything less. Don't be all butthurt about the criticism of your work, but it is not great and no one with any sense would print from a jpeg for work like that and you will have longevity issues as well, but being a yellow owner, we know you are slow.

Your'e wit is commanding as well silly rabbit. You bring it to the level of jousting with Q-tips.

Your'e doing a grate job Keeng...keap up thuh good wurk.

Seariusley.

 

[KNG SNKE]

Well on a serious note I am not sure of the "longevity issues" since the paper has already been printed. I guess when you print with a jpg file the picture tends to move on its own vice using a tiff file. Either way I used the jpg format for my personal car and the quality is more then enough for me to actually install these gauges on my car and those who have seen my car know I don't just throw crap mods on it. You have to remember that even though this is a jpg file we are talking about a picture that is 2x2 for the smaller gauges and maybe 4x4 or so for the larger gauges, it is going to be crystal clear. As stated before the ideal way to do this gauge setup would be to have them professionally printed and designed. 200 dollars would be the cheapest to have this done at the moment and honestly the work that goes into opening all of the gauges is not worth spending another 200 to throw some gauge faces in there.

The full ideal way to do this is to scan your faces, import them into adobe illustrator and create vector images from all of them. Take your edited image to a professional printer and print them on lexan in multiple layers. I didn't do this because I am very unfamiliar with illustrator and it is a pretty advanced program to work with. Artists use this program, I can't even draw a straight line.

 

[KNG SNKE]

Ok I stand correction and have to print a retraction. I just went and looked at the gauge faces and yes, there are longevity issues. For some reason on the tachometer the number 7 flipped upside down by itself. Guess I should not have printed with a jpg file as this auto rotation of the printed number would not of occurred with a tiff image.

 

[ZYellow01RT]

Ok I stand correction and have to print a retraction. I just went and looked at the gauge faces and yes, there are longevity issues. For some reason on the tachometer the number 7 flipped upside down by itself. Guess I should not have printed with a jpg file as this auto rotation of the printed number would not of occurred with a tiff image.

Is that "7" red in color (since it's spinning in place)?

Seriously...the format that you have used for your prototypes look absolutely gorgeous...

And....I did a search (yes, Plum, I actually did) for "dashboard removal", but couldn't find anything that useful. Do you have a good link for that?

 

[KNG SNKE]

It was in the member DIY section. When I get off my phones internet tonight I will link it. If its no longer there I will make one as soon as I have my car back here.

 

[ZYellow01RT]

It was in the member DIY section. When I get off my phones internet tonight I will link it. If its no longer there I will make one as soon as I have my car back here.

Thanks, King...I'm turning RED with stupidity because I didn't check the Member DIY first (only used the general search function).

And thanks to Viper Tony for great removal instructions!

 

[ViperTony]

Thanks, King...I'm turning RED with stupidity because I didn't check the Member DIY first (only used the general search function).

And thanks to Viper Tony for great removal instructions!

Not me, thank Ken (LifeIsGood) for that write up.

 

[ZYellow01RT]

Well, in that case.....Thanks, Ken!!!

 

[MontrealSoft]

Great DIY thanks ! We may actually use it to put KM/h gauges on a MPH car a friend imported lately !

One question... could someone share the actual scans he did ? That way I could prepare the photoshop job and have them printed before I start ripping the car apart

Thanks again ! I look forward to that kind of DIY !!!

 

[KNG SNKE]

Putting KM/h would be simple. I shared the full writeup and it is just as easy to scan all of the gauges yourself. Doing this project will help you get really familiar with Photoshop as well.

 

[MontrealSoft]

I am familiar with PaintShop and Corel Draw.
Actually, if one of you PM me the scans, I'll reproduce them in Corel Draw and share the CDR file.
I am on very busy schedule and really want to have time to work on the design without having to hurry to get the car back together.

Thanks !

edit: Cancel the request, I just (finally) clicked on your samples and they are clear enough, I'll work from those ! Thanks again !