does anyone know if 1/4 watt resistors would work okay for this application? Apparently I bought the last 470 ohm 1/2 watt resistors from the local Radio Shacks :pat:

 

Yup, I'm using 1/4 watt resistors and they're fine. That's what's so great about LED's! They use so little power! I got all the 1/2 watt resistors from radio shack too so I skipped over (not literally hehe) to a local electronics parts store. The 1/4 watt ones are smaller so easier to fit in those tiny places.

Zach

 

Shoot, if I had known that, I would've gone w/ the 1/4 watts. They're so much smaller!

Well, I found a website earlier today that stated that it's recommended that you don't go over 60% of the rated wattage. 20 milliamps * 6 volts = 0.12 watts. That's still under 50% of a 1/4 watt so it should be all gravy Too bad that by the time I had read that, I had already went to all the radio shacks w/in a 5 mile radius of me and bought up all the 1/2 watt ones :pat:

For those of you planning to do this mod, I'd recommend ordering them from somewhere, or making sure that local electronic stores have them in stock because all except two of the radio shacks around here only had (1) 5-pack in stock. The two had 3 so I bought them all

 

Well, other than the gauges, I finished the rest of my interior today. I forgot to take pictures though because I was rushing to finish before the sun went down, but I still ended up finishing about 2 or 3 hours after it had gotten dark.

Today was ashtray, finish cig lighter, and the auto's gear selector.

Ashtray, pretty straight forward.
-cut the legs off a LED, soldered two pieces of wire to act as contacts so that I could slide the LED in like the bulb.
-soldered resistor to the wire harness.
-I flattened the LED at an angle so that the light would hopefully go downward. Works well

Cig lighter
-I described earlier how I mounted the LED. Make sure you mark the wire harness w/ a + and - because it can plug in either way!
-Soldered in resistor on the wire harness.

Auto gear selector (2wd) I don't know if the 4wd would be the same.
-Your center area should already be open
-remove two screws from the front of the shift knob. They're held in by blue loctite so be careful not to strip them.
-put your hand over the shift button, and pull the knob up about an inch. the button should jump out into your hand. You can take the button out now. There should be a greasy spring that comes out with it.
-The knob still won't come out because the O/D button's wires are holding it in so don't pull. I tried :pat: Good thing I didnt' break anything.
-four screws hold in the gear indicator. remove.
-There's a brown? wire sleeve on the right side that has to be snaked out of the little clips that hold it to the gear indicator.
*NOTE* I don't have the gear indicator that's under my tach so there might be additional wires and sensors that might get in the way if you have that.
-lift the gear indicator straight up.
-there's a bulb holder stuck to the underside of the gear indicator. 1/8th twist releases it.
-There's a blue wire sleeve that comes down the left side and is held down towards the bottom by a piece of metal. Bend that piece upwards so the wire sleeve can come out. The O/D wires are in that.
-There should be enough slack in the O/D wires to pop the O/D button out w/ a flathead screwdriver.
-I couldn't figure out a way to unplug the wires, so I just cut them just below the O/D button. Make sure you leave enough slack to solder it back together later.
-O/D button comes out, which should release the shift knob. The gear indicator should slide out now.
*NOTE* My gear indicator turned out a little darker than the rest of the lights. It's ok, but I would prefer it to be a little brighter. I Think the problem was that, if I remember correctly when I was testing polarity, the bulb there is powered by 10v instead of 12 or whatever volts. I guess you could try a different value resistor, but check the voltage there to make sure. You have to test for polarity anyway since both wires are green w/ grey squares on them. Also, I think white would look nice here, but blue works fine, and the orange indicator actually kind of glows in the blue light
Lighting the indicator. This part can be approached in many ways. This is how I did it.
-pop the gear indicator open. 4 clips hold it closed. (this thing actually feels pretty cheezy! It's just plastic. If you have the gear indicator under the tach, there might be electronics and such)
-drill four 3/16" holes for LEDs
-flatten LEDs, install in the holes, epoxy in.
-wire everyting up.
-again, I made a thing that would plug into the bulb holder like a stock bulb. It ends up a craft (popsicle) stick fits perfectly into the bulb holder, so I cut the tip off a stick, and put the contacts on that.

-From here, it's just reassembly. Remember to watch polarity! I know I accidently reversed the polarity once or twice, but nothing blew. I'm pretty sure that the LEDs have some maximum reverse voltage rating, but it'd be a better idea not to test to see what it is, or if they have such a rating.

That's it for today! I've used 23 blue LEDs so far, so I need to wait for more to come in before I can start the gauges. I was going to do the gauges with white, and blue needles, or vice versa (if either is even possible), but the ebay dude forgot to send the white ones with the blues. I bought the LEDs from the same guy Bill did, and he has auctions for both blue and white LEDs in one auction. I got 25 of each for $18, but he has auctions up now for 50 pcs each for $23! I bid on one of those as well Bill, you're going to give this guys a lot of business in the next couple weeks. You should ask for a percentage!

*Disclaimer* I'm not responsible for anything that goes wrong with your installs Of course, use common sense and make sure that the directions make sense for your application. I'm not sure if Toyota changed the polarity on wires between years, or anything else that they might have changed that might cause things not to work.


I just found this site. http://www.99accord.com/DashLED/DashLEDHowTo.asp
It will help a lot with people doing this mod. He flattened the LEDs like I did cept he called it "shaving the LED".

 

Hey bad news but I don't see how you would make the needles a sperate color. They are illuminated by pulling the light through the clear plastic on the back of the gauges. I am thinking about changing from blue to white because with blue the needles are very dim at night. Unfortunately that will alos make the odometer a bright white too.

 

This may be a horrible idea, but what about making the needle red? It would be a good contrast. Its what all the new cars are doing so its easy to read. Don't want everything blending togeather... Just a thought for the needles... Otherwise good work! Keep it comming! I'm thinking about doing this but in red. My buddy did it in his volvo and its pretty bad azz.

 

Yep, mine too. I can barely see my needles at night with the cheapy walmart blue bulbs I'm using.

 

hey dudes, check this site out. you can get 194 style bulbs in LED!!!!!!! I haven't delved in far enough to see about the 74's but I'm-a-gonna look now!!!! if they work, then sorry, you are doing alot of work. haha.

http://store.autotoys.com/cgi-bin/wf...8/Catalog/1227

 

Isn't there some myth about dying 7 days after doing this mod...

Excellent job guys unfortunately I don't have the time or patience.

 

LoL I just got that :pat:

 

just do what I did and get blue bulbs from walmart and use a blue sharpie on all the rest. took about an hour.

 

Actually you still need to do alot of work, the only 194 bulbs are three of them behind the instrument cluster.

 

yea but like I said, I hadn't checked the site for 74's. since I don't think they have them I will be searching for them, I'll post if I find some. I did find some that were alot brighter than stock in the regular bulb 74's that are blue, I may give those a shot since they're cheap and I'm lazy.

 

I've seen those blue 194 leds at circuit city in the car audio department. A little pricey, $10 a pair.

 

you didn't happen to see the 74's there in the LED variety did you? I have yet to find them. looks like if I want to do this I will have to follow suit with this thread.

 

I've been trying to look for them in 74 as well, but i haven't had any luck yet.

 

I can barely even find regular 74 size bulbs

 

I get mine at pepboys. their 1.19 for two.

 

Hmm...i might have to scratch the whole blue lights/leds idea. Looks like alpine no longer makes the deck i wanted to get Most of their new decks r black with green lights, it should match the stock interior. But i really like blue interior and the "OEM-stock-slightly-modified" look. ahh well

 

I took a picture of the spring that returns the needle to the orig position. This is the tach. The spring is like a wound up clock spring, and it's brass colored. It's below the plastic face, and above the wound coiled thing.