making needles brighter?

hey yall, i just got done coloring my needles on my gauges to red (with the sharpie) and they lit up fine with the stock bulbs in place. however, tonight, i went ahead and changed out three of the 5 bulbs in the instrument cluster with some LED's i had left over. when i put everything back, the numbers (think tripometer, and odometer) lit up whiter, not that yellow, but needles are now darker. what is a good way to brighten the needles more than stock? thanks!

 

[ExplorerDMB]

I think your question is how do you get better lighting than L.E.D.s -- well I remember hearing from some guys that bought some L.E.D brake/turnsignal bulbs for his Jetta and when they went behind the lens, they weren't bright because the colored red lense would dull the brightness of the L.E.Ds. I would try maybe getting that sharpie off and see if you can find some RED L.E.Ds or something that'll work better than going through a color substance. Hope that kind of helps.

-Drew

 

[mdriggan]

I read somewhere else that you can scrape off the coating on the back of the gauges so that the color of the numbers can change. If this is done, will the white be scraped off to so that the numbers can be seen during the day?

Ive wondered about this and if this can work, I might replace the lights with blue bulbs.

Michael