How to make the AC/Heat control lighting brighter

[mckpaul]

After doing the 'chrome paint' upgrade on the cluster reflector, the dash lights up much brighter as expected. However, since the AC/heat control panel isn't part of that, it was still really dimly lit in comparison to the now really bright dash.

While I had the bezel off yesterday, I noticed the clear plastic face plate on the AC/heat control panel was removable, only held in with two small plastic tabs at the top and one at the bottom. The bottom one was easily pressed down (slightly and carefully as not to break it) to allow the clear faceplate to come out (you also have to pull the knobs off the controls). The clear faceplate has the white lettering on it, and behind the faceplate is a thin aluminum sheet painted black on one side to back up the white lettering. Anyway, once these two pieces are removed, it's easy to get to the one and only bulb. Mine was working, but wasn't clear anymore so it wasn't very bright, but even with a new bulb, it still wasn't as bright as the dash.

The clear plastic face plate is beveled at about a 45 degree angle on the right end, and the beveled edge surface is painted blue (about the same color that the back of the cluster reflector was before I painted it chrome). Makes it like a prism, so the light from the bulb shines through a slot cut in the aluminum back piece and is reflected off the blue beveled surface to kind of light up the clear plastic lens. I used nail polish remover and removed the blue paint. You have to be careful not to let any other part of the lens get polish remover on it because it will cloud the plastic. You have to work with only a slightly wet kleenex or paper towel, work quickly, kind of wipe and dry as you go removing the blue paint, only remove the paint and not let the plastic stay wet with polish remover so you wont mess up the finished edge of the plastic. It only took a few passes. Really easy to do, just remember that whatever you use to remove the paint will also melt the plastic if left on too long. Once that was done, I repainted the edge with the same chrome paint I used on the dash reflector. I had to mask if off with masking tape. I wrapped it in a piece of paper first and only stuck the tape to the places where there was no white lettering, wasn't sure if the masking tape would pull the painted on lettering off or not and didn't want to find out.

The end result it that the AC/heater control panel is now as bright and colored the same as the dash. Someone have have already done this in the past and posted about it, but if not, thought I'd share the info.

EDIT: Added some pics of what I did.