Hey mate, do you remember me by any chance? I was the young fella you helped out with the LED's at your house... I had the red EL

Hey mate, any chance of taking a pic of the dash when its dimmed to its lowest?

Cheers

ok so I put the leds in today, the air con looks good (although the screen isn't very bright) and the istrument cluster looks good (although it's missing an LED due to a bulb holder breaking) only problem I Have is the needles aren't at all visible (guessing it's because blue light is going through orange needles) so I was wondering if anyone that's done it could show me a photo of what the needles look like during the day?

Also is it hard to remove the needles? dad sugests I don't do it since they can break really easily or the thing that holds them on can break?

I'm going to get some EF or NF needles since they're white and the blue will actually shine through them.

Did anyone else find the AC screen to be really dull? either using white or baking paper didn't fix it. Anyone have any ideas as to how I can make it brighter?

Ok so I got it much brighter, turns out the dimmer was on, however it's still not %100 i'd like it to be about %25 brigter if possible

BTW does anyone know what Light goes into the rear wiper switch? it's a globe but it's smaller than any of the ones I have.

I've got the Futura so no AC Screen like yours, but I was able to improve on the initial result by adding more foil around the internal sides. Not sure if you can, but the LED's, if you bend back the pins away from the body so they are straight, you can wiggle the SMD part and pull them through. I did this, but didn't pull them all the way, just enough so that I could bend the head to an angle I wanted the light to shine, and re-bent the pins back in to the body.

With your needles, use a fork and very gently lever them up, not on an angle for gods sake otherwise you'll stuff the motors.

I had orange needles but used some nail polish remover and some cotton tips to remove the paint, and then used some white "DYMO" tape, which is sticky on one side, which allows you to stick a piece to your needle and then using a very sharp blade, cut around the needle. The light shines through them beautifully.

I reckon with the rear wiper switch, and I maybe wrong, but if it's black, has a flat surface and the bulb is on the otherside, then you can customise it so that you can still use an SMD LED, much like the way I was describing with altering the angle. In the factory one, bend out the wires so that you can remove the bulb. Then with your LED, bend out the pins, wiggle the top right off and out of the body, so all you should have is the SMD head with two wires attached to it, one with a resistor. You can then feed the wires back into the factory body and bend back the way the initial one was wired. you'll just have to play around with which way it goes due to it's polarity. I did it with my aerial and demister buttons.

 

 

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File comment: Aerial & Demister DSC_1309small.jpg [ 174.83 KiB | Viewed 303 times ]

File comment: At night DSC_1273.JPG [ 472.91 KiB | Viewed 329 times ]

File comment: During the day DSC_1813small.jpg [ 102.91 KiB | Viewed 331 times ]

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Alright thanks for the tips mate. Looks really good. turns out the demister light is inside the unit and is perminant although after taking it apart I've found I can't get it back together since it no longer moves on its axis properly (I only have left/right no longer left/center/right switch options) so yeah I'm just going to go to a wreckers and get a new one :/

I just replaced the needles with white ones so that they actually light up now however I'm not sure why but the speedometer needle only lights up about 4/5 of the way down it and dims near the end but the taco light is fully illuminated and very bright.

Did anyone else find that the speedo light was dimmer than the taco?

Sorry to necro a thread but I thought I'd add my mod to a likely looking topic..
Regarding needles, some strip the orange paint off and go white.
I took another approach.. fitting 3mm red led's behind the needle centre ring!
Angled correctly using hot glue, wired to the backlight line, the needles show up bright red against a blue background at night. Looks bloody lovely, a bit of a pinky halo where the lights mix too.
And visibly red during the day, which helps with speedo-watching.
Anyhow if someone wants pics I'll post some up.

I tried this led dash light conversion today and now the car won't start. I've taken the LED's out to reverse what I did but still no go. Turn the key and it just keeps clicking.

What the f have I done. Any suggestions on what the problem may be. I've checked over the connections a few times and all plugged in properly.

I assume you did the cluster.
When you say it's clicking when you turn the key, is it a repetitive clickling (like a flat battery) or just the usual single group of clicks from the relays (but no starter motor)?

If it's the normal click (usually don't notice it cause of the engine noise at crankover) then I'd suggest the BEM has a problem with enabling the starter relay. This is actually a common fault.
Try wriggling the connectors on the BEM (top and end ones) while turning the key, see if that helps.
You can sort of reach up under the dash to get to it without pulling the dash fascia off, but it requires some gymnastics.
Otherwise wriggle/reseat thje cluster connectors.

See if that helps.. there's a lot more stuff to check but start there.

The motor sounds like its just about to tick over and then just continuous fast clicks. Ratta tat tat. Just continued to do it every time.

Doesnt sound like its struggling like it would with a flat battery but maybe i'll try to jump start it tommorow just in case. But surely the battery wouldn't be drained after having the doors open for 3 or 4 hours?

that sounds like a flat battery to me.

I'll give it a jump tommorow and see. Cheers fellas.

Battery was flat. Tacho is not working properly now though.

What do you mean not working properly? Not working at all or not reading correct?

Its not working properly. Basically just sits there at 1000 rpm and only moves up and down occasionally. Doesn't follow the rpm.

Last edited by NLGHIA5.0 on Sun Jan 13, 2013 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.