^^ you will be happy with jason’s work.
So, I have my cluster apart and am fitting the led strip lights which I will wire into one of the existing 194 sockets.
Jason are you still putting additional led’s in any of the other available sockets on the cluster or just utilizing the led strip for all the gauge lighting?
just the strip, i dont see where wires are on this pic lol u did a better job than i did so is ur wire on the blub socket on the far on right?
Yes it is.
I got everything back together and it looks good, but I screwed up my temp gauge. It just shows hot now. Time to head to pick-n-pull tomorrow morning and see if I can find another one. 
oh shit! what happened?
I tried to be tricky about cleaning off the back of the gauge. Instead of using sandpaper, I carefully pried up the gauge face and spun it around with the needle still attached so that I could just wipe off the back with alcohol. Unfortunately when you do that, the needle spins too and it must have screwed up the gauge.
I had a spare that that I was able to pry the needle off and clean the back of the gauge face with alcohol, but that screwed up that gauge as well. I then went to pick-n-pull this morning and grabbed another temp gauge. This one I just carefully sanded inbetween the gauge face and clear backing and installed it and it seems to work fine. Whew! :whew:
NOTE TO ANYONE ATTEMPTING THIS MOD: Do not mess with the needles on the temp and fuel gauges. They are extremely sensitive and don’t take being touched at all.
I’ll post pics as soon as it’s back together. On a side note, I swapped out the bulbs in the HVAC controls with blue led’s and it looks good, but the blue is a slightly different shade then what is in my cluster. I might just use the strip in the HVAC ontrols too.
yeah yeah lol next time when u get new one tape over the needles while sanding with alcohol on sand paper with 2 set of hands and i was bored and being creative playing around with paint lol
Using the same strip lighting in the HVAC controls as the dash is actually quite easy if you already have it out. Is there any way to throw an inline variable resistor before the dimmer switch to evenly adjust the brightness of all the controls at once? After everything was installed it turned out to be bloody bright and could be a little to bright for night driving (which I do a very large amount of).
I don’t think mine is too bright and If it is then the dimming control seems to lower everything evenly. I have the cluster back in and took it for a test drive and now my speedometer cable is making noise so I’m ordering another one. The dash will be apart for another week it seems. LOL!
Here’s a few pics. I painted my needles orange but they don’t show up in the illuminated shots. It’s weird…nothing red or orange shows up very well in the illuminted shots but glows fine on the dash. Must be the blue lighting messing with my camera
u need florscent paint that reflects from light and other thing did u use wedge blub from superbrightleds.com #74 wedge on the top of cluster i call it top bar lol
Yep, I have those installed on the top bar. It lights up the needles fine. Just doesn’t show it in the picks.
what kind paint did u use?
Testors gloss orange enamel paint marker. I have some flourescent red and orange, but it’s not in a marker and that marker is just so easy to use.
i masked it off then sprayed it with
Finally got the cluster back in for the second time (first time it was to bloody bright due to not using the diffuser on top). The LEDs I bought were mostly useless for various reasons save for the strip lighting which was used behind the gauges, the needle lighting and also the lighting for the HVAC controls. Luckily enough the HVAC lighting was damn near perfect with just putting the strip in place of the two #74s.
^^ wow climate control light up so evenly,nice job man.
Yeah, it looks good. You need to throw a #74 warm white led in the fan motor/ac switch area. It doesn’t look like it’s lit up.
That I do haha. All I could find was cool white in a #74 bulb which makes it super blue so I just threw in the stock incandescent bulb.
I did mine in blue…Here’s the final result…
wow thats really bright :p, i just painted the bulbs red with high heat paint and its been 2 years and they still look good and red 