I just bought my 1997 Civic Ex and realized the needles for my instrument guages are not illuminated at night, is this normal on this car and other civics or is there something wrong with my needles and guages.

 

are the gauge faces themselvesilluminated? The needles themselves dont light up, but with the gauges lit up you can see them.

 

there are two overhead lights in the top of the cluster, those bulbs illuminate the needles on the guages, sometimes, they tend to short out, so you either need to wiggle them around or replace them.

 

My guages are illimunated just not the needles, the bulbs that are located in the cluster exactly where would I be looking for thes bulbs Im not seeing these bulbs.

 

if you remove the cluster, you'll see the two bulbs located on the top of the gauge cluster. p.s. you won't see them because they have a transparent cover to keep the light from glarring on the gauge faces.

 

BUT they suck.... stock cluster is VERY DIM!!!!!



do a cluster led mod
my cluster mod DIY
https://www.hondacivicforum.com/m_433337/tm.htm

beats the HELL OUTTA STOCK GAUGES!!!!!!!

SO IN SHORT THE NEEDLES DONT LITE UP

 

yay for your pictures, i hate explaining things like this

 

^ thanks for that addiction, i took that strip out and never really understood what it did

but +1 for those custom LED gauges, i did mine like that and they are AMAZING! How mine turned out:

 

ya i left my 2 lights stock it helps lighting up the needles ALITTLE... tho they are still pathetic.... BUT the blue compensates

 

Yea, I hated the fact that the needles didn't glow so I fixed that:


I used UV reactive clear coat paint (so it's clear when not under uv light) and dual 4" uv cold cathodes mounted in the spot for the flood lights.