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      10-10-2021, 06:57 PM   #183
Petro135
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Drives: 2008 135i E88
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: South jersey

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2008 BMW 135i  [0.00]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suprgnat View Post
I re-did the instrument cluster with new needles, gauge faces and cluster lens assembly.

The needles always bugged me as they had a hot spot in the center when the lights were on. I fixed that with new needles harvested from an E87. Only the bottom surfaces are painted, first with two coats of fluorescent red, followed by two coats of gloss white so any light leakage would reflect white light off of the gauge faces. The clear plastic of the needle transmits the fluorescent red beautifully.

The gauge faces are new from Venoxy and even better quality than the first set which was beat up from trying different needle painting techniques. I did one little tweak to the faces, no one without a micrometer would know the difference.

The lens assembly was replaced to get rid of the clouding I got on the lens when I glued it back on to the lens surround. It took me three donor clusters until I got a one where I could separate the lens from the lens surround cleanly. The interior of the lens surround is flocked, and the gauge bezels were painted using the same technique as the first time.















Nice job on those. I tried to do mine and I screwed up the dials, tried to open the little gear housings fix it and really screwed it up. Lol Had to buy a used cluster and send mine out to a professional to fix. Never again
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Suprgnat2317.00