It seems to me that if you are willing to just use the $10 tape trick you'd go ahead and save a little more and just use some glow in the dark tape, like speedometers of the old days? It's be a lot easier too. You coul probably get it in various colors, but I dunno?

 

Has anyone tried florescent paint?

 

After a bad set from ebay, I sent the originals to LexTech. Not sure I will be happy with their red waterfall fix I decided to research fixing them just as the originals. I ordered red surface mount led's from Digikey (#404-1006-6-ND) along with three 68 ohm 1/8 watt smd resisters. I have a magnified work station and a needle tip solder iron and plan to solder three sets of 6 led's in series ending with the resistor. Just like the originals these will be 18 red 635nm 50mcd bright smd led's. I will also use an analytical balance to determine the mass of the needle before and after and try to make sure they're equally balanced. If it works I'll provide a DYI along with pictures.

 

Looking forward to your DIY.

 

Any results from this DIY Polyneutro?

 

I had the same idea to try fluorescent paint, or retro-reflective tape. For at least 4 years now I have been looking at black needles against a black background, anything would be a big improvement! Seems like the paint would have less mass, and be more likely not to require recalibration. How about fingernail paint? I'm sure it comes in fluorescent colors. How difficult would it be to get to the needles for painting without having to remove the whole cluster? I love my 1992 coupe, bought it off the showroom floor, kept it serviced and garaged, best car I ever owned by far! I want to make it last as long as I'm eligible to drive!

 

I had circuit boards made and after soldering three groups of 6 surface mount LED's end to end I found the light was perpendicular to the needle. I had new circuit boards made and now the light is going pretty much inline with the length of the needles.

Wiring the led's was a mess.that is why I had the boards made. I made all of the needles but I tested them without the surface mount resistors and burned them out.

I have the speedometer and the tachometer needles assembled (3 groups of 6 LED's) but not installed. I am having issues with the polarity of the 3 led groups in the small fuel and temp needles. These each have nine led's, a group of 6 and a group of 3 led's.

If I was really thinking when I had the boards made I would have included through holes for the wires and resisters. Currently I drill next to the pad to bring the wires to the laminate surface and solder the pairs of resisters and attach them with a thin coat of epoxy, Plated through holes would have made this much easier and more professional.

I have successfully assembled and tested two red sets for my 95 SC 400. The circuit boards and led's fit inside the needle. The base that makes the connection has to be modified slightly to snap down into the three plastic posts. My original issues were with the resistor values. I am currently using two 137 ohm 1/16 watt resistors for each group of six led's and four 1.58K ohm resistors for the three led's at the top of the short needles.

I also destroyed two two bases and got several 35 needles from the junk yard but non of them work, so I will re-manufacture some of them. I have 5 complete sets of clear and a few red and orange. The short needles in orange are longer than the red, or clear needles. None are working and all would have to be re-manufacture.

 

I have found a complete needle set (4) for the ES 300 1995-96 on EBAY. They retail for $90 and require unsoldering the old needles and resoldering the new ones. I have not tried them yet, but it looks like you do not need to disconnect the needles from the cluster, thereby not requiring recalibration, or worse, messing up the coiled spring and ruining the whole thing. I'm in the middle of another project right now, but this will be my next project. If anyone has done this, please post and let me know how it turned out.