I like the look. One of the reasons I don't like the Simota design is that the sides remain silver and it gives the face too much depth. It doesn't look right. However, these pictures indicate black sides. Is that true?

That's exactly what I don't like about the Simota overlay; We have black sides on ours we painted the silver part black before using the 3M overlay from Black Cat Customs:


http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...3/photo2-4.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...3/photo3-3.jpg

Did you remove the sides and face of the gauge? How difficult is it to remove from dash? I sent Black Cat Customs an e-mail to order it.

No, I just painted everything black except where light is supposed to shine through. Not sure if that answers your question. Check Digi's DIY on the previous page.

But how did you remove the plastic trim piece to begin with, does it snap on/off?

Nope. U have to remove the entire speedo. Once you take that out you have to take it apart in order to remove the fuel gauge trim.

The fuel gauge trim is clip on, but you have to disassemble the entire gauge cluster to pop it off from behind. Once it's out, you can reassemble everything and put it back in your car without the gauge trim. That way your car doesn't have to be down without the gauge cluster.

Once the mod is complete, simply snap it back in place. I was without the face plate for a few months because Black Cat Custom had my gauge face for tooling.

What I like about Digitoniums sticker is that no silver shows at all as opposed to Simota's that you can see silver on the sides. We need a link to your man digit... good shyyt!:tup:

I know this is a bit off topic (and sacrilege for this thread) but I have a scratched fuel/temp faceplate and all I want is the OEM (silver) part to replace it. Nissan don't sell it without the entire cluster. I have looked online with no luck. Anyone have any suggestions?

Black Cat Custom Automotive - Gauge Faces for all makes and models of cars and trucks - LED Lighting Upgrades

I worked with them in the past with the 350Z. It was a tough project: blacked out gauge faces. Basically he added dark tint to the numbers and markings. The LEDs were changed to white. When the car was off, everything looked dark. When I started it up, you can see the numbers light up. It was a cool concept, but wasn't entirely perfect.

The least you can do is order one from the junkyard. Sometimes one will show up in the FS section. Take what you need and sell the rest for parts.

Are you saying that you have to remove the entire three gauge (speedo, tach & fuel/temp) cluster to gain access to the back of the fuel/temperature portion to push that out? Wooah. It suddenly got complicated. Can't you just grab the side of the fuel/temp gauge and pull it out? Turn and pull, unsnap, twist, squeeze and turn, pry out, turn clockwise.

Why didn't Nissan just design it correctly in the first place. Didn't someone at the time say "hey guys this looks a little out of place?" At least Ferrari chose an interesting color like red to put on their tachometer.

With these kinds of design shortcuts, what's next? That there may be other important flaws like the need to add oil coolers or that there's no sound deadening. What's up with that?

I am certainly not the expert, but for my fuel/temp faceplate at least all I had to do was force my fingers under the faceplate (beneath the temp) and it popped right off. The only thing to watch out for is the LED light deflectors, my bottom one fell out but was easily put back in. Just line up the plastic pins.

If you can do that, props. I have fat Asian fingers lol [cough]. Haha.

The whole thing is painted clear plastic, so mask it well and use paint thinner to strip some paint. Then mask it again before painting it with matte black paint. I did the unthinkable... use a dremel to strip paint and it ate into the plastic. >.<

i wish there was a way to pry that piece off without removing the entire cluster...

i suppose i can do a TPMS light delete while i have the thing off...