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Replace factory gauge lighting with LEDs!

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Old 05-04-2009, 09:27 PM
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nope, you have to take the cluster apart man.... no easy way around it.
Old 05-04-2009, 11:28 PM
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Yea i got impatient and just did it anyways. Are those needles gonna come accross purpleish also since the backlight is changing to blue now? And what did yal do to cover up the kph on the speedo side?
Old 05-05-2009, 06:25 PM
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Old 05-05-2009, 10:37 PM
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I decided to do this with my gauge cluster on my 04 Lariat. I turned out well. I will post pics soon. I found it much easier to scrape the green stuff off with a razor blade instead of using Q-tips. I was going for the bright white look. I got 100 white 5mm flat-top LEDs off of ebay for like $10. In order to get the super bright white look I was going for I found the best way was to hot glue them straight to the clear plastic piece right behind the numbers. There are about 30 or so LEDs glued to my board. Since I glued them straight to the board they turned out to be really bright so I ended up putting another dimmer on it. It looks like you are in the millenium falcon getting ready to head into hyper-space. I like the super bright look though because you can clearly see it during the middle of the day and it looks cool. I put a three way switch under the dash so the cluster can be on whenever the ignition is on or only when the lights are on (like normal).

I'll go out and snap some pictures now.
Old 05-06-2009, 12:06 AM
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Here you go. the rpmx1000, fuel, mph, temp,and oil symbols are actually blue. it just doesn't look like it in the pic.
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Old 05-06-2009, 07:47 PM
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Thats sick! The blue shining through kinda bothers me but the white looks great! Couldnt get the guages to light up?
Old 05-06-2009, 08:57 PM
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How accurate are yal getting the needles back on? Im havin some trouble!!! i was thinking about putting the old cluster in doin 70. hit the cruise and just put everything else to match with the new cluster in my lap! bad i dea? And my info center light came on, then i unplugged it to put the cluster back together then go out and its not working!? Any ideas why?
Old 05-06-2009, 10:06 PM
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Originally Posted by navytrev
How accurate are yal getting the needles back on? Im havin some trouble!!! i was thinking about putting the old cluster in doin 70. hit the cruise and just put everything else to match with the new cluster in my lap! bad i dea? And my info center light came on, then i unplugged it to put the cluster back together then go out and its not working!? Any ideas why?
I assume you have pictures of where they were before. I found that if it isn't set right, pull the needle back off, turn the ignition on then back off ( gauge cluster needs to be hooked up) and it will reset the neddle post to where they were before you took them off. This works for me. I have taken mine off 4 or 5 times already.
Old 05-06-2009, 10:13 PM
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I finally got em close. il get the roomates car to follow and tell me if my mph is correct, i have the tach memorized at 70mph. And i did but i moved them some
Old 05-09-2009, 11:30 AM
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haha i know exactly how frustrating that is! I have to re-do mine. I used $#i++y wire and one of them came off... So i gotta pull mine back out but I'm definitely going to order more LED's and do it the way jhughes did his. That looks amazing. I'll do mine with blue though, not white haha

Thanks for the pics jhughes!


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