natewill

Weird thing I just found out tonight.

Bought this bike this past weekend. This evening I took it for its first night ride. Well...the tach and temp gauges are white-face, but at night they constantly morph colors. Red to blue to green and so forth. I'm pretty sure this isnt stock. The gauges have no brand name on them, although they look like they could be stock (no wacky fitment, no crazy stickers or extra buttons, etc).

Has anybody seen these? And how do I keep the colors from morphing? It's crazy annoying. I can't see the tach needle because the background color is constantly changing, the needle itself is not lit, and it's just weird. The PO didn't mention anything about a gauge upgrade, either...

K30

Sounds like custom LED backlighting. Is it a stock gauge pod?

7moore7

Haha that's not even fair to get tricked like that. No, it's not stock at all... Honda'd probably have to deal with some lawsuits if they tried it. What year are your gauges? I'd guess that just the backlight bulbs were replaced with aftermarket LED's... You may have some de-wiring to do.

natewill

Is there an led bulb that would plug into the stock plug that would change color like that? That sounds easy enough to correct. They were pissing me off on the whole ride home.
I would assume that the gauges are stock.. the bike's a 98, and it looks pretty stock all around, except for the sprocket changes and carb tweaks etc.

K30

You can pick up replacement bulbs at any autoparts store, they're 194 bulbs.

I bet you have something like this in there now.

7moore7

Stock 98 gauges have 3 backlight bulbs I believe... I can't think of any color changing plug'n'play led's that you could put in there, so either they re-wired the stock bulbs, or *hopefully* just added them and you can unplug and be done
.

7moore7

Ok, K30 just confirmed what I didn't know was possible. Yeah, just grab three relpacements

Haha, they are "magic" bulbs after all!

natewill

God I hope so. Anybody wanna buy some magic bulbs on the cheap? Or should I just grind them under my heel this weekend?

K30

Save 'em for a practical joke. Put them in a buddy's gauge pod or cage.

7moore7

natewill

You have a point. Is 192 a common size? I'm thinking this would totally freak someone out if I put it in my brother's, I mean someone's gauge cluster.

K30

I almost certain they're the same bulbs that are used in 73-87 Chevy vehicles.

natewill

I'll let you know if it fits in a 2000 Windstar cluster.

lukenukem47

I did that to my cluster last year. Think pep boys or auto zone sells them. They are led bulbs. It's a cool effect unless you happen to need to see the tack when racing. When blue is let it sucks at quick glances. Bulbs are not cheap.. Come in sets of two. I was trying to replace every light on my bike with LEDs my rpm and temp are the only ones that do that every thing else is white.

merlman

the 194 bulb doesnt get hot? i just had to replace a bulb on my bike and i was worried that because of the 14v it would get hot and melt the plastic