Up-to-date cluster/climate control LED conversion.

INFORMATION Articles / Teg Tips
1

After doing the conversion using awalp’s walk-through, I ran in to some issues that many others seem to be having. This isn’t because his walk-through is bad, it actually seems to be because superbrightleds.com possibly changed their 74 to a new style or something and it no longer works for some of the things we needed it for.

I came up with a solution and decided to post a new thread about it that is more up-to-date, since a lot of users seem to be having issues with the 74 bulb. This walk-through covers 90-91, I honestly do not know if the 92-93 is different in any way regarding the cluster/climate controls. I will not discuss the removal/installation of the climate controls and cluster, but I’ll be nice and post links if you don’t know how to remove/install them…

Cluster removal-
http://g2ic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188011

Climate control removal(fix your solder joints while it’s out!!!)-
http://g2ic.com/tegtips/interior/7.html

You will need to order the following bulbs, I recommend superbrightleds.com because after over a year I still haven’t had any bulbs burn out other than issues that were un-related to the bulb itself…water damage, etc. I do not cover the dash-switch lighting…I’ve never pulled them apart, I have no idea what bulbs they take, I have no idea how they’ll look with LED bulbs. When I get the time I’ll grab a spare set of switches and toy around with them, maybe come up with a guide on how to fix them if they don’t light up, and convert them to LED.

2 x 194(circled in blue in my pics)
4 x T1.5(they come with sockets, circled in red in my pics)
4 x 74(circled in green in my pics)

Get them all in WIDE ANGLE, and I don’t recommend getting the high-power LEDs because it would be obscenely bright and quite a bit more expensive. It would also do a really good job of showing up as un-even lighting…let’s face it, the lighting already isn’t even across the cluster and when you go to an insanely-bright bulb it shows more. You want it looking nice and clean, so go with the normal LEDs. I personally went with blue on both of my conversions, but you’re free to pick whatever color you wish…amber seems to be pretty popular and looks cool.

Here’s the bulbs that you’ll need to replace, I’ve circled them in various colors which are listed above for identification purposes. I didn’t get a picture of my fan-speed/temp-mix controls to show the bulb…but the bulb is actually part of the control-panel, you can see it on the wire in the third pic.

Back of cluster-

Top of cluster-

Climate control panel-

Just replace those bulbs with the ones you ordered, matching the colored circle in the pic with the color listed with the bulb types above.

***The T1.5 bulbs will be a snug fit in the top cluster lights, but nowhere near as bad as re-using the OEM sockets with the 74s in them. In my second pic you can see that the right-side of the PCB is broken…I tried to use the OEM socket with the 74 bulb, it wouldn’t fit so I tried to force it and that’s what happened.

***The climate control lights use 74s so that will also end up being a snug fit back in to the controls, worst case scenario you’ll have to use a knife or razor blade to bore out the socket a little bit so the new bulb fits in it without expanding the socket causing the socket not to fit back in it’s spot.

***For the green circled socket in the first pic, the 74 may fit a little loose…look inside the socket for the tabs, bend them towards the middle with a small flat-head screwdriver or something like that, this will tighten up it’s grip on the new bulb.

***Again, be sure to REFLOW YOUR SOLDER JOINTS inside the climate controls while you have it out of your dash. This fixes the “buttons don’t work/lights don’t work” issue that almost everyone has with them. It’s super easy, and is detailed in the walk-through I linked above. Removing the climate controls is too much of a pain in the butt to have to do it twice!

Pics of my cluster coming shortly, car is currently on jackstands with no motor/trans, should be done Wednesday-ish. Until then, enjoy the pics of my first conversion before I ran in to issues with the 74s, and before I converted the climate-controls.

I will not be held responsible if you break anything, do this mod at your own risk. Thanks to awalp, G2 Racer and Brinks for their awesome write-ups. :rockon:

2

Thanks to whoever moved this in to the Teg Tips section. :up:

For those that want to convert their map lights, dome light and glovebox light…

Map lights = 2 x 194 wide-angle
Dome light = 1 x 3022 wide-angle
Glovebox light = 1 x 194 wide-angle

I haven’t done this yet, so you’re on your own until I get around to it and can type up a quick walk-through. Right now I’m stuck trying to figure out how to get to the 194s in the map lights without breaking the housing or the lenses.

For those that want to convert their exterior lighting…

Rear parking/brake lights = 4 x 1157 wide-angle red(doesn’t include third brake light, I think it uses an 1156 Red)
Rear reverse lights = 2 x 1156 wide-angle white
Rear turn signals = (90-91)2 x 1157 wide-angle amber, (92-93)2 x 1156 wide-angle amber(thanks for the info, spikeymike)
Rear side running lights = 2 x 194 wide-angle red(they’re in the tail-light assembly, barely noticeable)
Front running lights = 2 x 194 wide-angle(I ran white and got pulled over for running “blue lights”, replace at your own risk)
Front corner turn signals = 2 x 194 wide-angle amber
Front bumper turn signals = 2 x 1156 wide-angle amber

If you do your exterior lighting, you MUST USE the LED blinker relay that superbrightleds.com sells otherwise you will get the fast-blinker issue. LEDs consume much less power than normal bulbs, which makes our cars think a bulb is missing.

As you can see I recommend wide-angle for everything, narrow-beam looks weird and creates bright-spots which makes the lighting look very un-even. I also did not use high-power LEDs for anything, I went with the less-expensive normal ones.

3

Interesting people are having problem with these, maybe I was lucky. I did this mod last week and all the blubs went in fine, not too tight or anything. Doesn’t seem like i’ll be having any problems with it…

4

FYI

90-91 rear turn signals are a 1157 dual filament bulb.

92-93 are a 1156 single filament bulb.

5

In two different clusters I couldn’t get the 74s from SBL to fit in the little black sockets in the top of the cluster. They had to be forced in the socket, then the socked had to be forced in and turned in to the top light PCB…broke one pcb doing this. Due to the amount of force required, and the pressure created on everything, this caused the contact points to fail and the lights would blink as I was driving. Numerous others had this same issue, yet you and many others didn’t. Wish I could explain why that is.

[QUOTE=spikeymike;2118216]FYI

90-91 rear turn signals are a 1157 dual filament bulb.

92-93 are a 1156 single filament bulb.[/QUOTE]

Now that I think about it, my rear turn signals may have had the 1157 sockets and I replaced them with 1156 sockets. Either way…why would they use an 1157 for a turn signal that isn’t a running-light? Weird.

6

Maybe at the time 90-91, single filament amber bulbs were harder to obtain than dual filament?

Since 90-91 tail lights didn’t have any amber in the back, the amber had to come from the bulb. One that is used in just about all parking light/turn signal instances where a 194 bulb isn’t used.

92-93 tails had an amber reflector so they can just use a clear single filament bulb. Easily obtainable since it’s used for reverse lights.

Just my speculation.

7

Done with my conversion, the only thing I’m not happy about is the bright spots created in the climate controls. This is because the 74 bulb will not fit in the little black sockets without force, but since the climate controls use wired sockets I can’t use my T1.5 solution. The only way to fix this is to use a razor blade or sharp knife to scrape some material away from the bulb socket to allow the 74 bulb to fit all the way in, which backs it away from the front of the climate controls and widens the beam. I’ll mess with it some other day.

Sorry for crappy pic, only camera I have at my disposal is my Blackberry. In person the lighting looks a lot more even on the gauge cluster and the fan-speed/temp-mix controls. On the climate controls you can see what I was talking about with the bright spots.

8

did you use blue for the 2 above the cluster

9

Yes, I used blue for all dash bulbs I’ve replaced.

Pretty soon I’ll be placing an order for various types/sizes of bulbs to see which ones will work with the rocker buttons below the cluster. Once I can figure out a sure-fire way to upgrade those, I’ll revise the walk-through to include that info.

10

how do you replace the glove box light? dose anyone know?

11

You have to remove the glovebox, the light assembly is held on to the left side of it with 2 screws. I’m pretty sure it’s a 194 bulb.

12

how do you remove the glove box?

13

I had a lot problems with the 74 led bulbs fitment i used a glue gun to keep them secure from movement. I have also had a number of bulbs go out and have had to replace them. I first used the blue set but it dose not come out even and dosent look that great, I then got the white hid looking color which was a hint of blue and they look bad ass bright fills all the spots the blues didn’t. It makes the dash look like a new car with the new color instead of the old dinghy yellow white. I also got all the regular cheapest leds from super bright leds.com and they seem fine.Price starts to add up with the more expensive leds. I don’t no why i have had some go out they start to get a slow flicker then in a few days they go out. Maybe they get lose and are not making good contact so the flickering starts. Even with that problem i would never go back to the old blubs i love the look of it now. Ill get some pics of them up soon.

14

DOHCIntegraLSI the rocker buttons are 3mm NEO3
the smallest NeoWedge 3mm

15

There’s 6 screws. Open the glovebox and you’ll see them…1 on each side by the hinges, 2 in bottom of glovebox, 2 in top by where the latch-loop is. Then it should pull right out.

[QUOTE=namekteg;2132329]DOHCIntegraLSI the rocker buttons are 3mm NEO3
the smallest NeoWedge 3mm[/QUOTE]

Have you converted those? If so, any issues and do you have pics of the conversion?

16

Thank you sir. I was wondering this myself and I will probably be doing this in the near future. Hopefully it won’t look retarded.

17

What happened to all the pictures?

18

I’m not sure, I haven’t changed anything in my photobucket. Looking in to it now.

EDIT: Somehow the links were changed to g2ic.com links, maybe a staff member tried to upload them to the site for me so they’d never die? If so, the pictures don’t exist at those links so for now I’ll re-edit them to the PB links.

EDIT2: Links fixed. If a staff member was trying to edit them, like I mentioned above the links were broken so I switched them back to my photobucket for now until that issue is sorted out.

19

i did the rocker buttons today when i did the rest of the bulbs. i also removed the filters in the buttons and OMG pure awsome white light:rockon:

20

Pics plz!!! I’ve been dying to see those rocker-switches done in LED, before I order some and do mine. Did you use the above-mentioned neowedge 3mm from SBL?

I wonder how blue would look…