From Taurus Car Club Maintenance and Modification Wiki

Due to an overwhelming response to my recent gauge modification, I’ve made this write-up, so I hope that you will find this useful if you plan to do the same to your car! This is a great appearance modification to your Taurus or SHO. You can totally customize your gauge faces to personalize your car, and it’s just about guaranteed that no one else will have the same exact gauge faces that you do!

A few words of wisdom before we begin: I planned to upload some actual-size gauge face templates from my SHO to make it easier on everyone else that would like to do this mod. However, a fellow TCCA member was recently warned by Ford that doing so would violate a few copyright laws. I fully intended to help everyone out here, but alas, I shall refrain from doing so in order to protect myself. If you feel the need to do so when you scan your own gauges, by all means, go for it. Just don’t say you were never warned. This will not be an easy project for the first-timer, or someone that is inexperienced in Photoshop. Don’t let the lack of Photoshop skills discourage you though, this will give you an opportunity to learn more of the functions. Keep in mind, the instructions here for disassembling your dash and gauges are written from my experience in disassembling a Gen. II SHO. Yours may be a little different, but its not rocket science. If you break anything in the process, it’s not my problem. If you follow these instructions carefully, you shouldn’t have any problems, but I will not be responsible if anything should go wrong with your car in the process. Good luck!!!!

Contents 1 Tools / Supplies Needed 2 Removing the Stock Gauges 3 Making New Gauge Faces in Photoshop 4 Custom Painting Your Gauge Overlay 5 Images

Tools / Supplies Needed

• Adobe Photoshop
• A scanner (unless you have someone else’s illegal templates)
• A good printer, preferably photo-quality
• Matte photo paper (or I used the un-marked reverse side of glossy photo paper)
• A good high resolution image that will be the background for your gauges and personalize your car
• Bright lamp or bare light bulb
• ¼" Nut driver
• Ratchet
• Coupler
• Bits / sockets needed: 8mm, T30, T20, T15
• Pliers
• Razor Blade or Razor Knife
• Scissors
• School Glue
• Spray Paint in your choice of color (if painting gauge overlay)
• And finally, a lot of patience!

Removing the Stock Gauges

1. Slide your drivers seat all the way back. Disconnect your battery with the 8mm socket. You will be pulling a lot of electrical components apart, so this is probably a wise step to follow.
2. Remove the 4 bolts on the knee panel directly under the steering column using the T30 bit.
   • Ford seems to love using these star-shaped bolts. It’s very important that you use the correct bits on these. If you try to get them out with a Philips head screwdriver, you will strip them. Trust me on this one.
3. Carefully pull the panel down and put it out of the way.
   • Wipe it out while you’re at it… there is plenty of dirt and dust inside!
4. Remove the 2 bolts holding the dash on directly beside either side of the steering column with T20 bit.
5. Carefully pull the dash directly out, and disconnect all wiring harnesses that are connected to it. L-R on the Gen. II SHO would be:
   • Headlight switch and bulb
   • Rear defrost switch
   • Fog light switch
   • In-dash radio controls
   • Clock
   • Lower steering wheel to lowest position possible, and pull dash panel away. It will take a little tugging, but be very careful not to break any tabs.
   • This is a good time to clean the whole panel and get all the dirt out of the little nooks and crannies.
6. Remove 2 T20 bolts in white plastic on either upper and lower side.
7. Remove 6 T15 bolts holding the clear plastic protector on.
   • Clean this real well while it’s off, too!
8. Remove 2 lower T15 bolts that hold in the black gauge overlay. Carefully remove the overlay without disturbing the needles, and set aside.
9. If you have a good memory, make a mental note of where your gas gauge lies, and know where your tachometer should lie at idle. I did this mod while the car was completely cool, so my temp gauge was already at C. If your memory isn’t quite up to par, write it down. This is vital.
10. Move your needles out of the way of the pegs, and use pliers to careful remove all the small black pegs. Put these in a safe place!
11. Now comes the scary part. Using the pliers, remove each gauge needle but carefully but forcefully pulling STRAIGHT out and away from the gauges. Doing so may pull the actual gauge out of the dash assembly, but it will pop right back in. (There is no need to remove each actual gauge for this mod.) Put the needles in a safe place!
12. Starting from one corner of each gauge face, carefully peel the black face away from the gauge. (Mine came off fairly easily and by the time I had to re-apply, there was still enough "sticky" on two of the to just stick them back in place.)

Now, you are ready to make your new gauges.

Making New Gauge Faces in Photoshop

Note: I used Photoshop 6.0 to make mine. If you have a different version of Photoshop, the instructions may be slightly different.

1. If you have removed your gauges, you will need to scan them at no less than 200 dpi.
2. After scanning and saving your images, open them in Photoshop.
   • I did mine one gauge at a time so it was less confusing. However, if you chose to use one panoramic image for the whole cluster, you will need to perfectly position each gauge face on the scanner and make one image from it.)
3. Open the image that you will use as your background image.
   • Go to www.google.com and do an images search for whatever you are looking for. It usually turns good results. The image needs to be larger, or at least equal to, the size of your gauges. Go up to Image à Image Size, to check dimensions of images.)
4. Go back to the template image that you scanned. Using the magnetic lasso tool
   • 2nd icon down on left side of tool box, right click box to select type of lasso.), Outline the entire gauge face and copy (Ctrl C) the outlined image.
   • Go to File à New, and open a transparent new layer. Paste your cut out template onto the transparent layer (Ctrl V), and merge the layers (Layer à Flatten Image).
   • This gives you a cut out version of the gauge face that you scanned. This will be the final template, so you may close the original image, but make sure you save this one.
5. Now you will need to get the lettering and number from this "dummy gauge", to transfer over on top of your custom background image. To do this, select the Magic Wand tool
   • 2nd icon down on right side of the toolbox), and click it anywhere in the black part of your gauge image. This will select outlines of the gauge itself. You will want to reverse the selection, so that it will only select the lettering and number. Use Ctrl + Shift + I to reverse the selection.
6. Copy the selection (Ctrl C) and go to your custom background image. Paste the lettering and numbers selection on top of the custom background image (Ctrl V). Using the Move tool (1st icon on right of toolbox), move the lettering and numbers layer adequately, until it is centered properly and looks like the original template. Merge these layers by selecting Layer à Flatten Image.
   • The gauge lettering and numbers should be kept white on this image so that enough light can get through.)
   • Now, you get to decide what colors you want your letters to glow at night. If you don’t want custom colors, you may skip the steps that entail customizing your "dummy gauge" colors and go on to Step 10. If this is the case, you are done with the template image and only need to print the custom layer. You will use your original gauge faces as your "dummy gauges" that go behind your custom background faces. Colors will be stock colors at night. If you opt for custom glowing colors, continue.
7. Go back to the "dummy gauges" template. Using the Bucket Fill tool
   • 6th icon down on right side of toolbox), Fill in the lettering and numbers on your template the desired color of which you want them to glow through at night. (To select a color to fill with, click the area of the toolbox that has the two colored squares. This allows you to use the picker to select any color.)
8. Save both the custom background image gauge, and the "dummy gauge" template. Do a "draft" (low-color) print out of each image, on plain paper. Hold each draft print in front of your original gauge face that you took off the car, in front of a bright lamp or bare light bulb and compare sizing
   • (Doing this allows you to line up the lettering and numbers to determine if the size is correct. If you need to resize the images, go to Image à Image Size, and adjust the Pixel Dimensions. I found it handy to measure the original gauge face across with a tape measure, then adjust the Document Size (under Image à Image Size) to match with the original.)
9. Once you have the correct sizing, print the custom background gauge face on matte photo paper in the highest print mode possible, or if the reverse side of your glossy photo paper does not have any trademarks or logos, you can print it on that side.
   • I opted not to use the glossy photo paper to reduce glare from the sun. When your print drops, set it aside to dry thoroughly. It will most likely come out wet.)
10. Print the black background "dummy gauges" in highest quality mode, on normal paper.
11. When the top layer custom image is completely dry, use the light to properly align the images together, with the custom layer on top. Add several small dots of normal white school glue to the black areas on the "dummy gauges", and place the custom set on top. Use the light to properly align them together while the glue is still wet. Place the sheets in a heavy book and let them dry for about one hour.
    • One hour will sufficiently stick them together, but overnight would probably be best.)
    • Follow all the above steps to make the other two gauge faces, unless you used one panoramic image to cover all three gauges.
12. After the images are glued together and dry, use scissors to cut the excess paper off around the edges of the printed gauge faces.
13. Using a razor blade or razor knife on a hard surface, cut out the areas that will need to be open, such as the holes for the needles and the spaces where the trip, odometer, and other warning lights go in the middle of the speedometer gauge.

It is now time to install the new gauge faces. If you are using your stock gauge faces as the "dummy gauges" with your custom background, you may still have enough "sticky" left on the back to just stick them back on the gauges in the car. If you don’t, or if you have opted for the custom glow color "dummy gauges", you will need to use some double sided Scotch tape to stick them back on. Just make sure you don’t put any tape behind the lettering or numbers because they will not glow properly. Only use the tape on black areas and on the edges of the gauges to hold them down.

Re-assemble everything using the steps above that you used to take your dash apart, in reverse order. Once everything is re-assembled, it would be wise not to press your dash back into place just yet because you may have to adjust your needles. Re-connect your battery terminals and crank the car so that you can see where your needles lie on the gauges. You may need to pull them off and adjust them a few times to get it back to where they originally were.

Once you have everything set back to normal, bolt the dash back in and take it for a spin! This is obviously the only way to test the speedometer, but I had no problems with mine being off, so I did not have to go back in and adjust that needle.

Enjoy your new gauges!!!

Custom Painting Your Gauge Overlay

I did this project when I had the dash apart while making the custom gauge faces. Wash the piece in warm soapy water and make sure it is thoroughly dry. I opted for a silver overlay because my car is silver and it set off the dark gauge faces nicely. This is very simple to do. Choose your color of spray paint and put about three light, even coats of paint on it. Let it dry thoroughly between each coat so that you don’t get any drips or runs in the finish. You may coat it with a clear spray after the last coat of colored paint is dry, but that is purely optional. Let it dry completely (overnight is best) and re-install. If you change your mind later, it's worth noting that Goo Gone is like liquid spraypaint remover.

Images