After finding several manufacturers in Asia all who wanted several hundred, if not thousands, of units before considering my requests I stumbled upon a company located in the U.S that would manufacture the gauges as long as they got twenty pre-orders. Fast forward two-years and we have the results of those efforts. Customizable gauge faces for a reasonable price.

The standard package includes the following:

• EL Gauge faces.
• Inverter. (basic or upgraded)
• Generic instructions.
• A Speedhut sticker!

I placed the 510 gauge cluster, after removing it from my dime, on my garage workshop. I removed the eight-or-so screws holding the cluster together (located on the circuit board side) to expose the gauges. (Speedo and fuel/temp)

Next, I carefully removed the needle pointer from the speedometer in order to install the gauge face. I removed the two small Phillips screws, but not the stock gauge face, and set them aside. Next I placed the EL gauge face on top of the stock gauge and replaced the screws to hold everything together. The installation of the tach gauge face is similar to the speedo.

The toughest challenge I found was how to secure the EL gauge faces for the Temp/Fuel gauges. Those gauges have curved faces, and while the EL gauges are flexible, the challenge was to find a suitable glue or fastening method.

I tried using superglue, but it did not stick very well to the EL gauge face material. (the back of the gauges are fairly slick) I ended up using 3M weatherstrip adhesive. So far I have not had either the temperature or fuel gauge faces return to their original flat state.

Each of the gauge faces has a lead that must be connected to the EL gauge inverter. (Which controls the color and intensity of the EL portion of the gauges.) I removed one of the stock dash illumination bulb holders and used that hole to route the wires to the inverter. The inverter requires a switched positive connection (that is controlled by the headlight switch) and a ground wire.

The results are shown in photos 2 and 3. The photos don’t do these gauges justice. They’re quite impressive and there are no problems reading the gauges at night. I fact, I had to turn the brightness down on the inverter because the gauges were too bright.

Overall I quite satisfied with the gauges and I’m impressed that Speedhut can offer so many color, font and illumination options. If you’re looking to improve the visibility of your 510’s stock gauges at night then look no further.

DQ

Photo 1: El Gauge faces (daytime) Photo 2: EL Gauge—Face lights up. Photo 3: Reverse EL Gauges—Numbers light up.