icspots, What exactly was done to the polarizer film to change the color to blue? I definitely want to do this ASAP so any info would greatly appreciated.

 

well personally I've never taken apart the cluster, and from looking at the picture I'm not sure what's lighting the needles. All of those pictures are from Commie on the mazda3forums. Here's his walkthrough on changing the dash LED colors. Try PM'ing commie, he's pretty good at getting back to people, and he'd be the guy to know this.

I'm not looking at my gauges right now, but I feel like the needles are actually orange/red, so I don't think changing the color of the LED would change it that much. EDIT: I looked around and found this picture. As you see the needles are orange, so unless you could turn them clear you wouldn't be changing the color with the LEDs



Umm, there wasn't any change in a polarizer film to change something to blue. Note that in that picture the radio LCD is red on black instead of black on orange. The polarizer mod I was talking about was that LCD. He removed the polarizer and flipped it around so instead of it blocking only where the numbers were it blocks everything but the numbers. Also he added a red film to give it a color that more closely matches the odometer display. Here's a walkthrough on the polarizer swap on the LCD, and the after picture.



Now on the lit strip that runs to either side of the volume **** he had to scrape off a red film, and he replaced the red LEDs with blue ones. If you look in the "changing dash colors" walkthrough I posted above then notice what that stripe looks like with the HU off. It's clear now, but before removing the film it was red when off.

Any other questions?

 

How are the guages connected. When you pull the gauge pods from the dash is it lined up a certain way making it a precise job of re installing? I'm afraid of the interior dissassembly. The led replacment will be a cake walk. Thanks for the pics, i definatly know i wanna do it now!

 

If you're interested in changing your LCD to blue stick around for the next week or so.

I'm currently in the process of attempting to change it to blue.

And if I don't F it up, i'll write an extensive review of how it's done.

 

http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=69809.0

If you are still interested in Changing the colors in your mazda Check there.

 

personally i love the orange dash lights. dont really know why its just something that i really like on the car. that and the spedometer. that like is reallly cool.

 

check this out! a great walkthrough on how to change the dash colors and guage cluster colors:

http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=31367.0