changing your dash lights to L.E.D.'S HOW TO ARTICLE
 

How to change your dash lights to LED's

This is how I have done mine. Your cars/trucks may vary. So do this at your own
risk!! This is how the ones in my 2003 Monte Carlo SS were installed. They were on a breadboard set up. Not the twist in 194 bulbs. (Would have made this easier)


1.Take apart your dash to the point to where you can get to your dash lights. (Check your repair manuals for this. Normally in the replace a bulb section.)

2. Get the breadboard out. Remember how you did this to get it out of the car and how everything goes back to greater again.

3. Once you get the board out. Figure out on the backside what connections are the ones for the bulbs to be replaced. IF THEY ARE LED's already you will not have to install the resistors in them. They are already set up to limit the voltage going to those bulbs.

4. Get out your soldering gun. And warm it up. Take some pliers or something that you can grab on to the LED's that you would like to remove.

5. Figure out witch end of the LED is Positive on the board. With a meter.

6. Heat up the backside of the board connection for the LED's that you want to remove and pull on the front part with the pliers to remove the LED. This Allow the solder to remain there but out of the way.

7. Now the fun begins. Take the resistor that you have for your L.E.D's and put the leg threw the borad on the positive side and sodier it in to place. Now Take the new LED you want to put in the board. Push the - leg in to the hole on the bord you now have one hole open on the board with the LED's negitive in the other one. Take the other end of the resistor and sodier it to the POSITIVE side of the L.E.D. This shoudl complet the circut for you and it will work with out blowing the new L.E.D. Do the same thing for the rest of them.

8. Make sure you have them in the right direction, Now take the two legs and bend them over Making sure that you get the LED tight to the front of the board but also Making sure not to short it out against anything else on the board.

9. Solder them in to place. Cut off the extra part of the stems as close as you can to the board and make sure it is still snug to the front of the board.

10. After you complete this for all of them you can reassemble and replace them in to your car for a test run. If you did this right then they should light up like normal.

11. If you have gotten this far with out any issues then you should have a nice result and working set of LED's in place of the old ones. If not, well you need to take them back out and check to make sure you did it right. Or figure out what you did wrong.

As far as the light bulbs that are on the broad with the blue coverings on them, Theses you need to have a resistor on them also. This is not too much different then what you have done thus far. But you will need to solder on the resistor to the positive side of the LED's then you will need to soldier it to the board so that you can make contact. You should have clearance if Not take a dermal tool and shave the LED's sown just a small bit at a time till you get it to fit correctly.


OK i hope this will help answer some questions on how i did this and also clear some of it up for those who would like to do this.

thats a nice write up i think i might try that next weekend.

Aw damn, I thought Mickey was back :'(

ou should put some pics up of the after so i can tell if i want to do it purely for asthetics

don't hold your breath man, Mickey's been gone for a while :'(

Member silverbullitt has blue LED's in his car. Here's a video of it. You'll see the interior at about 1:14 in the video.

http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...t=MVI_0926.mp4

Of course that's not all he's done to his car.;):D

Good evening everyone... Quick question for you... I just got my Monte back from the shop after having the dash cluster lights all replaced... They couldn't locate (sold out) a used cluster, so they soldered and replaced the bulbs... They all work, however, when I crank it to maximum brightness it seems very dim but lit... The mechanic in passing said that they had replaced the LED lights, I found this strange as I have never changed them over to LED and this year model (2002) did not come equipped with them... Here's my question, if they did replace with LED and no transitors, would they be a dim light?... Is this possible?... Or would they not light at all?... I am going to call them tomorrow, but wanted to know the answer before they try to conduct a song and dance... Thanks, :confused:

If they were changed to LED, you can't really dim them at all.
I believe they stay lit all the time. (Don't quote me on this, i read this somewhere i can't recall and have no proof :P )
So if this is true, then they are lying and if you can still dim them... they didn't change to led. (if what i said is true lol) good luck

Thanks for the info... Would you have any idea why they only seem 1/2 brightness when I crank to max and the rest of the dash and doors are considerably brighter?... Could it be the dimmer switch?... Thanks,:confused:

Maybe not all burnt/damage lights were replaced.
When you say its not bright, the WHOLE cluster or just SECTIONS?