Blue interior lighting (no more orange)

[Yankie]

I finally finished blueifying my interior, well the most of it anyway, nothing is ever finished.
Here is a list of mods:

Door inserts retrimmed in blue vinyl (kinda looks like leather)
Blue leather gear shifter boot and handbrake boot
Window switches swapped out with blue LED's
Dimmer switch and headlight adjuster swapped with LED's
Cigarette lighter and ash tray lights swapped with blue LED's
Clock backlight swapped with blue LED
White face dial overlays which glow blue
Blue LED's soldered onto festoon bulbs for blueish interior lights
Rice wire, that blue glowing stuff, I think a little bit of it looks good (around centre console)
Blue neons in foot well, under front seats and behind rear quater door panel inserts, all positioned so you cant see the neon themselves, just the blue glow.
New head unit (DVD player ect) with blue backlighting and buttons
Took climate control unit apart, stripped paint (to get rid of orange undercoat) then painted black masking off the numbers ect, replaced globe with blue LED. (not as good as stock, but you cant tell unless you look real close, but hey, its blue )

I think that is all to date.

Will take some photos with my digital camera when I clean the car, I have a few photos from my phone, doesn't really do it justice.





(before)

(after)




Edit: (incase the pictures don't work for some people, such as me)
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2885/dsc00100kso.jpg
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[Reizvoll]

objective criticism, that door panel looks as if in the curve it is not glued down properly? maybe shrinkage???

[BMW 316i]

i love the blue dials, and also the blue light detailing strip.

[bnr32_coupe]

time to press the door panel material down! i love the blue theme though!!

[VADER]

YANKIE... I never knew that the Climate Controls Actually Light-up... How can I get my Climate Controls To Light-Up Like Yours? We Have The Same Climate Controls!

[Yankie]

Damn internet, I just posted a big reply and the internet cracked a wobbly so I have to write it again grrr.
Well if you just want it to light up orange all you need to do is replace the globe. To get to it you need to remove both dials by pulling on them, then unscrew the two screws behind them. The face plate should pull off with some encouragment, behind it is a small globe in the center. Pull it out and either replace with a new one or solder an LED + 330R resistor to get extended life and increased brightness.
Well I am hoping its that easy, I cant fully remember whether you can access the globe like that, I took my whole climate control unit out when I did mine, which you will have to do if you want to change the colour of the light. If you can't get to the globe in the method above you will need to take off the front, then take the sun glasses holder compartment out and the one above it (or the OBC if you have one) then the whole unit needs to be pushed back and all the plugs disconnected. With some tricky manouvering you should be able to push the unit in, then down and out underneath where it was sitting.

If you want to change the colour of the backlighting it gets tricky. I stripped off the paint with acetone and then repainted the whole face by hand by using little stencils made from masking tape to cover the areas where I wanted light to shine through. I painted over the whole thing with black paint and when it was dry peeled the masking tape off and touched up any fine detail with a tiny brush. Then I simply replaced the globe with a blue LED + 330R resistor.

Hope this clears things up a little, and I am pretty confident you can do it via the first method.

[VADER]

Thanks Very Much! The detaile are excellently written!

Thanks!

[Yankie]

Good news, I have finally gotten around to reupholstering the doors again, this time I did the entire door, all in black and blue fluffy material, it feels so good and I didn't screw up, everything went perfect I also reupholstered the roof in black and I am buying leather seat covers (proper fitted ones)

[VADER]

Great Job Yankie!!!

The project seems to be coming along pretty well... I still haven't done my blue control lights as of yet, but I'll get to it and when I do I'll keep you posted! Thanks again for the details!

[bmoss234]

looks great dude, must have been a pain thought, love the new gauges