[GoreMaker]

My old '78 Trans Am had green flashing turn signal arrows on the dash. My new '77 has red ones. Which is correct? Is it a function of the bulb color, or does the lens determine the color?

Honestly, the red looks really angry to me I find it a bit jarring compared to the typical green turn signals.

[77 Canamman]

Green is original. The green colored filters were either located on the dash bezel or the cluster depending on the year.

[GoreMaker]

So somebody went to the trouble of changing the filter colors in the bezel? That seems so odd for a car that was mostly kept meticulously original

[TAKerry]

The filters look like an old green plastic bingo chip. I believe there should be a small diameter cardboard tube behind to direct the light.

[bhill86]

Didn’t TATA and/or pace cars have red? I feel like I just saw a member somewhere post his cluster from a pace car and it had red lenses.

[bhill86]

Found it

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...47#post6313147

[78w72]

Originally Posted by bhill86

Didn’t TATA and/or pace cars have red? I feel like I just saw a member somewhere post his cluster from a pace car and it had red lenses.

all pace cars & tata's had green turn signals. the earlier firebirds & t/a's used cardboard tubes with a green filter cap & later years (78?-81) used a green lens glued to the bezel. no turn signals were red from the factory.

the red paint on the lens over the turn signals in that link posted is not factory from any 2nd gen cars i have seen. all red gauges were painted a bright fluorescent red inside the housings to create the red back light.

[bhill86]

Gotcha. I wasn’t sure

[GoreMaker]

Now I'm gonna have to take my bezel off and check what's going on because this seems really weird to me. I have no clue why my turn signals would be red.

[78w72]

Originally Posted by GoreMaker

Now I'm gonna have to take my bezel off and check what's going on because this seems really weird to me. I have no clue why my turn signals would be red.

someone painted the lens or installed red bulbs...

[GoreMaker]

Yeah what I mean is I have no idea why someone who's trying so hard to keep the car original would go and do that. It seems bizarre. Upon closer inspection, the lenses look red.

[78w72]

hard to say why someone would do that, people did all kinds of strange things to these cars over the years.

let us know what you find when removing the bezel.

[GoreMaker]

Took the gauge cluster out today. To my eye, this looks OEM. The red tint is printed on acetate in precisely the right shape to cover the turn signal opening, and they look like they were applied there from the factory. It's really obvious on this car spotting the differences between stuff that was done at the factory and later work that was done by previous owners, and this matches all the OEM stuff really well. There's a CHANCE that it was modified, because one of the backlight bulbs is missing altogether and its spot very obviously had a bulb in it in the past, so clearly this cluster has been pulled before. But the cluster appears to be original to the car. So I guess there were some 1977 Trans Ams built with red turn signals in the dash. This one was built in December 1976.

[78w72]

those look nice. i hate to be a downer on this, but i dont think that was a factory thing. i have never seen or heard of a factory 1977 or any other 2nd gen year firebird or trans am having red turn signals, i could be wrong since ive obviously never seen every firebird out there, would be curious if anyone else here has seen or heard of this. if you ever see another one like that please post a pic. my guess is someone really wanted red turn signals & they cut out the red pieces to fit the lens.

i wonder if there is or was some regulation or law that turn signals are green since other more important warning lights are red? other car makes are green too & if any firebird was going to get red turn signals it would have been the 79 10th anniv & 80/81 pace cars that had the red gauges & radio LEDs. just a guess.

[GoreMaker]

That's the thing though, if it was a cutout I could see it being a modification. But it's not, it looks like something that was stamped at a factory. Honestly, I'd kinda prefer if they were green but one of my goals with this car is to keep its appearance mostly original, and this is one of those bizarre details that really fascinates me. I'm still kinda perplexed by it.

[78w72]

i cant say for sure, just going with what ive seen on these cars over a long time of owning & learning about them but who knows, maybe it was an aftermarket company in the 80s that made them for some cars? i know its not a factory option to order anywhere i have seen. keep looking into it.

[Mike Davis]

The link posted is my cluster that is in my 80 Y84. The original lens was painted red in that spot. Not really sure why on a 31K mile car that was mostly original. I bought a lens off a guy at a swap meet and the signal area was painted red as well.
I have had about 6 T/A's over the years and they were all green.

[GoreMaker]

Mystery solved! The guy who owned it for 30+ years until 2014 was the one who made them red because the green filters had faded to practically clear and he liked the look of the red. So it's not factory-original. Took me a while to track the guy down.

[TAKerry]

There ya go. No matter how original a car is, we need to keep in mind these that a lot of stuff can happen over 40 or 50yrs. Even if its changing the turn signal colour!