rx7learner

I know this isn't a typical thread for the 1st gen forum... but I was hopeing someone might have had experience with this.

When I bought my 7 the last owner installed what I think are reverse glow guages. They look cool during the daytime (white face), but at night the only thing that glows are the needles and a little light around the outside edge of the guages. In the dark I cant see any of the detail or numbers so I cant tell my speed / fuel / temp etc... It's frustrating and I don't know what to do except disasemble and analyze, and hope to find the problem.

Anyone have an idea?

I never seen these guages before and when I google the problem I don't get much help.

zephyr07

iTrader: (2)

My gauges won't light up at all, the rolling switch thing used to turn tehm no no longer has any resistance, I was told the reostat(sp?) was broken, so maybe you could try that? But it sounds like maybe somethign is disconnected. A buddy of mine got a little too ricer over the summer & put those neon lights under his dash & such... he wired them to the parking light fuse but it came loose alot, maybe that could be your problem.

jonjonwells

Most cheap reverse glow gauges come with their own power pack. It usually comes with a nice little switch to adjust the brightness of these gauges. The light that you are seeing is bleed through of your stock gauges from behind the rice ones. Crawl under your dash and look for power wires that dont look stock coming from the gauge housing, somewhere there should be a lead for them. It is usually a really small black wire (26guage). If they are missing, then the installer broke them/took them off and needs shot.

blown7

I bought a set of these off ebay and they came with a little micro switch. I didn't like the fact that i had to hit the switch every time i wanted to turn on my dash lights so i just cut out he switch. Silly me you need the switch to make the system work so i thought till i found out you can tie the power and ground into the factory system to make them work. I'll have to look later to let you know which color goes where.

they look like this in the day right


and should look like this at night

John64

I did as blown7 did and tied my glow gauges directlyinto the factory gauge lights. They come on when the lights do. There is a switch which changes them from green to blue that is tucked up under the dash, I just leave them on blue.

rx7learner

Thanks... Mine look exactly like the picture... and lit yours look very nice.. I will get up under the dash tomorrow. I hope I can find either a switch or a bad hardwire job.