My New CheckerBoard Guage Faces
 

I'm going to attempt to upload these pics I just took of my new checkerboard guage faces. They were easy to install thanks to the how-to thread here at NAM. The job took me about an hour and a half. The hardest part for me was lining up the needles. These two pics are of the speedo.
Hopefully more to come.

Here are two more pics of the tach. Special thanks to ImagoX for the how-to thread!
Regards,
R50HyperBlue

Those look really sharp! Not too busy at all and they look great against your interior. Glad the How-to helped! :)

Nice

I like the design and look of the gauges but i dont like the way the warning lights are varied brightness, like where a light crosses a grey and a black square it looks different brightness, and that kinda looks cheap that they couldnt make it unified.

I think they look great. And, importantly, not so busy that they are difficult to read.

The only that stinks is now I want some. They look way better than I thought they would have. Very nice indeed!

I agree on both points. They look great and much more readable than I expected for having a pattern on the gauge face. However the warning lights do look odd.

I'm still waiting and looking forward to the versions for Nav.

That is my only complaint - well not really a complaint. The warning lights don't pop-out at you like they do on the OEM face. I have the gray/black UJ and the warning lights are far less visible, however the new faces look too good to quibble about trivial details. What are the chances of a MINI's warning lights going off. :lol:
Love the CB faces, look great!

agreed, and the cut outs for the ovalish displays, there appears to be a white edge, like a stamped out piece of paper or cardboard puzzle cut out piece. Maybe it is just the flash catching it, but if it is white, that would bother me. I know how hard it is to capture true interior details, so it might just be camera type issues.

Otherwise, they look great.

I like how it hides all of the warning lights!

Neato! :thumbsup: I had imagined b/w checkers, which would be a nightmare. :lol:

Very nice!!

is it an easy DIY for anybody...

Nice touch!:nod:

I just did mine today (I ended up going with the black/gray UJ). I am not mechanically inclined in the least and it was very simple and straightforward - use ImagoX's how-to and you'll be fine. If I can do it, anyone can!

Two small sticking points for me that slowed me down:

1) Getting the piece of trim off that has the speedo, vents, and dimmer/hazard buttons on it (the big flat piece) from underneat the dash lip. I was SURE I was going to break something no matter what I tried, and at one point the hazard button went flying -kaching!- into the back seat, causing me to let loose some choice 4-letter words. However, the button just snaps back in, and I just kept wiggling at the piece and it came loose.

2) Getting the needles aligned - getting them off was hard enough, getting them off with no rotation was impossible. I ended up using VERY tiny needle-nosed pliers to grasp the underside base of each needle and pulling straight up, but there was no way to do it without rotating the needles. I just did the thing where you plug each gauge in, let it reset, THEN put the needles back on. I went for a drive and everything seems to be fine.

Random note: make sure the #20 torx you use is actually a screwdriver and not the flip-out key kind. I have a set of the key ones that I keep in the car and I attempted to use them for this but there are a few places they don't reach very well, and they don't get behind the tach at all. So I had to run to Ace to get an actual screwdriver kind.

Thanks to Matt for the how-to and the inspiration!

Ditto ML - I'm still a little nervous with the fuel gauge reading correctly. I did the reset thing as well so I'm assuming it is reading correctly. If not I guess I've always got my cell phone. :lol:

ImagoX can be a true inspiration to us all - with his mods on a leased car no less! :eek2:

In response to the question of how easy it was to installl, I ditto the remark above on following ImagoX's how to post. I also ditto the point that the most difficult task for me was lining up the needles, which I did by connecting the guages in the Mini and reseating the needles as required.

On another note, I noticed that for the tach, when I turned on the headlights it lit up well EXCEPT the area around the number "6" (about 1 oClock on the dial). I reopened my tach and carefully removed the tach face and found the reason this area wasn't getting lit was because the area around the number 6 was obscured from receiving light by part of the white plastic frame behind the guage face. I resolved this by and cutting and removing this inner area of plastic with a wire cutter. The tach dial now lights up fine.

So ImagoX...that lease you have, gonna buy the MINI out right when the lease is up? Or you going to spend the 3 months prior to the end of lease returning it back to stock :)

Yeah I have a little spot around 8 on the tach (I think it's 8...too lazy to go look right now) that doesn't light up quite right. But it's not bothering me too much so I'll get to it one of these days.

It looks great!