Simple Speedo face repaint

[AnEv942]

I should be embarassed...but I'm not.
I'm only offering this for what You could do and ideas, not what I actually did.

One of the simple things that has ALWAYS annoyed me about our scooter was the speedo face. The overpowering primary numbers are Km as are the graduations. Just glancing at speedo I couldn't tell how fast I was going. I Admit- my eyes are going south. Anyway decided at minimum I was going to paint over are the LARGE kmh numbers to make the mph less hidden. You probably don't want to do this but there are some options...Now thats its done I have a whole bunch of ideas on how to redo it when I have nothin better to do.

But this is what I did for now.

Pulled speedo apart. Unsure if needle drive will keep rotating once needle is pulled (possibly losing calibration) so I just rotated and loosely taped needle down. I started masking then decided to take some pics cause I couldn't find any other speedo face mods.


Here Ive already pulled tape. The face is is clear plastic, the numbers, graduations etc are painted with a translucent paint. The back-lighting simply shows thru the areas not painted black. I used some thin striping tape to mask the arcs. Taped over the mph markings and everything else leaving only the graduations and KM numbers exposed. Spray lightly with flat black. Removed tape, wala no km. That'll work.
Its here I realized that if I had some materials I could really do this up right. I had nothing on hand to make number masks or translucent paints. But you COULD get real creative. Painting theres several different ways.
Couple are, after striping off old paint, paint with colors you want. Then with some vinyl numbers and tape mask what you want to see, paint whole face black, unmask. 2 you could mask front with what you want to see, paint face black (then top coat with a color or white if you want) then add colors to the back side to show thru. You could also reverse paint it so the whole face glows and numbers are black.
But I'm leaning toward printing out an entire face decal on clear vinyl.
Lots of options, could make a plate or machine a nice alum cluster panel to cover body hole and install real gages, or just install gages in gutted cluster-no limit

But for now....

I used some vinyl tape to add graduations, happen to be the same golden yellow. Since the numbers are so small I made the graduations wide point to numbers (that I cant see) with small grads at the 5mph divisions. The tape, though the light wont shine thru where its on the black, is quite translucent so the arcs shine thru. Ive a piece of white tape on end of needle trying to see if white would contrast better, think so and have since painted. I did try to scratch/wipe thru the black to have tape light up but couldn't control it to my liking. I can see needle though -and I already know Ill be redoing this just continued tapeing.


Kinda liked the flat look so I might not reuse the "wood" panel insert. Definitely if I don't remove, I'll paint the 'wood' either black or maybe body color.

If and when I get around to actually doing this again Ill update. If you don't say anything I cant here you laughin :rofl:
I'm liking it for now. If you've seen other mod their speedos or custom gage panels Id like to see links...Suprised seems like a market-Its big in some car circles. But

[90GTVert]

Not bad. At least you aren't distracted by giant KPH readings.

One Idea that may not be too hard would be to add a Sigma bike speedometer in the bubble for the speedo. I love 'em, but they have no light. Maybe mounting one inside that bubble would allow you to either light it enough to see with the existing guage lighting or you could mont a light in the plastic bubble over it.

If you wanted to keep the stock guages, you could paint that bezel black or body color and make the guages white faces. That would be more of a hot rod look IMO. It would be really sweet if you could make the white kinda translucent and put blue bulbs behind it so it would (probably vaguley) resemble the guages in '03-04 Mustang Cobras or Auto Meter's C2 series.

[AnEv942]

Hmm you could cut a new panel using translucent milk white plastic, ptfe, plastic cutting board etc, that would diffuse the colored light. would be cool. Decal, black on clear print would be simple for the numbers/ graduation.
Wonder if theres enough plastic chrome to dull somehow acetone, steel wool for a 'brushed" look. Paint the wood insert flat black with a thin red pinstrip on the perimeter.
Like I said just ideas...

[2strokd]

Great idea, looks good to me :thumb:

[90GTVert]

That's a really good idea with the cutting board plastic... I think. If it was thin enough it might just do the trick.

[scooterrebel]

Good work.