HOW TO: Change your dash lights

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HOW TO: Change your dash lights

Postby rogue.goofball » Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:24 pm

At night I found the dash lights have dulled a lot so I put a bit more lumens in there, and changed the colour a bit.

It's actually a fairly easy job:
Just 2 switches to be removed, then 2 screws for the outer cover, 3 screws for the dash clocks themselves, and un-clip two beefy connectors.
Hopefully with this little guide it will be even easier, and you won't have to mess around too much if you are switching to led's.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with this:
Image

But you might not be so familiar with this view:
Image

Here is my diagramatic interpretation of the back of the dash for the purposes of changling the bulbs:
Image

I've numbered the bulb holder's one to seven. They are coloured with a red or pink dot on my car, and I believe that is the case on all del sols - though I don't actually know what the significance of why I have a mix of the two. (maybe my two red ones are in the wrong place... see below for theory)
If you are switching your bulbs to led's there is one important thing to know - led's have a positive and negative terminal, and if you put them in the wrong way they don't work.
To make life a little easier I would recommend that you get hold of a 9v 'square' battery (6LR61?) to test your leds... this has a two-fold benefit.
1. You mark the negative terminal of the led with a biro, so you know which way to put it in.
2. You figure out which one's are dud's without having to stick the dash in and out of the car.
(my experience is that you will get some duds, probably about 1 in 10)
Next we go to the bulb holders. You give them a little (30 degree) twist anti-clockwise to remove. Mine all had a toshiba logo on them, so I use it to set the polarity - keeping the logo so that it was always the right way up.
Have a look at my diagram and you can see the most of the bulbs have the negative polarity to the top, but two (just to mess with your head) have it the other way... could this be the reason for two colour codes?
Anyway best to strip the dash out in the light, but I'm afriad it is impossible to test it unless you have darkness, as if only one bulb is failing you might not spot it (especially #'s 5 or 6).
It is possible to link and light the dash up with a 12v battery outside the car, but I didn't go far enough to check which connector pins do it - somebody else might know.
Another tip - even when the led works, the bulb holder might be a bit sensitive, so you have to be careful to seat it in well. Once you know the leds work, and that they are in the right way if one is failing just tweak the holder a bit to make sure it is seated ok... it's probably a good idea to print off the diagram I did and actually purposely remove a bulb one by one, as it's easier to see if it does or does not dim by removing a bulb.

Last but not least the result:
Image

Cheers, Dave.
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Re: HOW TO: Change your dash lights

Postby Prime » Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:25 pm

any reason why the fuel and speedo 140kph +/- are round the wrong way? That might catch a few folk out.
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Re: HOW TO: Change your dash lights

Postby lukewood » Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:52 pm

cheers for this, im gonna give it a go soon.
sold my sol to the devil
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Re: HOW TO: Change your dash lights

Postby rogue.goofball » Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:43 am

Prime wrote:any reason why the fuel and speedo 140kph +/- are round the wrong way? That might catch a few folk out.


No idea really, but I'm guessing that it was due to the way the pcb was made... cheaper/robust with that setup.
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Re: HOW TO: Change your dash lights

Postby kreig » Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:53 pm

Just a quick note. Having just done this. We found that the third LED from the left the polarity is the wrong way around. We were a little confused for a while!
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Re: HOW TO: Change your dash lights

Postby rogue.goofball » Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:20 pm

kreig wrote:Just a quick note. Having just done this. We found that the third LED from the left the polarity is the wrong way around. We were a little confused for a while!


Do you mean it is wrong on my diagram?
I gave each one a number... which one exactly are you refering to?

Dave.
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Re: HOW TO: Change your dash lights

Postby scrom » Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:11 am

Possibly dumb question - where did you get a set of leds from and what exactly did you need to ask for?
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Re: HOW TO: Change your dash lights

Postby rogue.goofball » Sat Apr 18, 2009 10:36 pm

I got them from jazprom, cant remember the exact technical name of the bulb, drop him an email or pm, and he will get back to you.
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