BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

I'm thinking about trying to get some LED bulbs for my gauge cluster. I did some reading on LED setups from different people here on TGO, but what I haven't found out is whether or not you can buy a style bulb that will fit into the holes/sockets of the original lights in the back of the clusters? The kind that you sping 90* and they lock into place, that's what I'm looking for.

Has anyone ever found any (and used with good success) and wants to help me out on where to find these? I don't want to rig up some contraption if they won't work the way I want them to, I'll just stick with the stock bulbs if it comes down to that.

RubberDucky

iTrader: (4)

I've been digging about this myself, I found this. I just skimmed through it so it may or may not be what your looking for. There's this also.

FueledSoul

iTrader: (18)

I plan on doing the same once i get around to the interior...Seen a few threads and web pages but it was awhile ago. . . Be interesting to see what you find and come up with

Al Hasse

I was able to use these in the instrument panel of my 89. The bulbs were separate from the sockets, so replacement was really easy, just unplug the #194 incandescent and plug in the LED.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...-x5.htm#photos



IIRC, your 90-92 dash requires only 4 lights for illumination, excluding idiot lights. Those four shine into the end of a plastic extension at the bulb to work like fiber-optics, so you could get away with a narrow angle LED in each position. My 92, before I put in a digital dash had the lights and sockets soldered together as a unit. You may have the same issue, I don't know if the sockets are available from parts stores or not, but I pick them from the yards when I visit (and remember) and have a few extras.

FireDemonSiC

Al Hasse beat me to it.

But on that note, if anyone has done this to an 82 - 90 style dash could you please post pictures? Right now, I have replaced all the bulbs in my cluster with the standard bulbs that have been tinted red. Light distribution is far from uniform not to mention the tinting starts to fade in certain spots after awhile leaving parts of the cluster looking a little more orangy than the rest.

I want to see what this will turn out like before I invest $50 in light bulbs.

Al Hasse

Since you asked for it, here's my 89 done with red LEDs. There's also one behind the HVAC panel. For the radio, I removed the faceplate and painted the back sides of the buttons. Also removed the switch cover and painted the back side of the defogger switch. I also painted the back of the instrument panel bezel white instead of the powder blue it comes stock.

Awesome-X

LOL I love the Superbrightleds.com ad at the bottom of this page

iansane

iTrader: (1)

You can get just the sockets like Al mentions from most any parts store. However, won't you need to put some sort of pwm or dimmer inline different from the factory one to get any dimming feature out of the LEDs instead of them just turning off?

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Looks like I'm ordering some red ones, thanks for the help guys! I'm afraid I might not be able to remove the yellow tint in the cluster so if I went with blue it might not turn out very good.

Demon355

iTrader: (1)

Interested to see how this turns out.

Krik

iTrader: (4)

I found that the LEDs that I tried was more of a "spot" light rather than a "flood" light. I didn't like the way it looked. I went to O'Reillys and bought some brighter 194 bulbs and couldn't be happier. I think I kept some of the LEDs for indicator lights, but the rest are just brighter bulbs.

Heres a free tip, replace the dome light with a appropriate size LED bank. It looks really cool, its brighter.....and its not hot! No more yellowing of the dome light cover. Buy a new cover and it looks good as stock!

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

No dome light in convertibles, just the two small ones in the rear view mirror

Krik

iTrader: (4)

<smacks head> I didn't realize you had a convertible.

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Hence why there is no roof on it in my signature

Krik

iTrader: (4)

Thought it was a typo? <Shrug>

PhillyTurboSix

I did a lot of research on this for both of my GN's. I had led's in my one GN for some time and found they go bad or burn out when you use the cheap ones. I was using the style posted above. I went with surface mount leds for my 86 and they came out much better and cover a lot better.

I wound up using these guys.. http://www.v-leds.com/194-168-158-LED/c122170-1-2/ they sell different colors. While it was hard to take a picture of the dash it's much brighter then the pics below but you get the feeling of the difference by the pictures with before with 195 lamps and then the 194 LEDS. v-leds was good to work with as well. I had 2 with a dead surface mount on them and they swapped them right out.

GN dash before with 194 lamps...




And after with the 194 LEDS.




It was pretty much like the pics show. You could hardly even see the dash at night! Now it's nice and brite.

iansane

iTrader: (1)

I sometimes wonder if it'd look good to replace those with LEDs but I kind of like how "warm" the color of incandescent bulbs are.

Al Hasse

Super-Bright LEDs claim that their LEDs will dim with your dimmer circuit, however, the ones I bought from them do not - they turn off when the voltage lowers just so far.

Also available in warm white

http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/C...-p8829506.html

As are the rest of the styles.

iansane

iTrader: (1)

Is there anyway to dim an LED without a PWM?

Now that's cool.

Krik

iTrader: (4)

If you want a picture of how it looks I can see about taking one.

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

I ended up buying (1) red LED and (1) blue LED from that superbrightleds.com site. I'm going to try both and see what looks better, maybe I'll try my luck at removing the yellow tint to the numbers and hash marks and see if I can get blue to look good without turning green. I'll post up my findings and my progress. I'm really excited to do this, I think it will really give the inside of the car a totally different attitude.

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

SHOOT!!! I just realized after I submitted my order that their store is like 5 miles from my house Maybe I can save myself $8 in shipping once I order all the rest of them.

84 1LE

iTrader: (9)

Dont have one for the Hvac, but here's what i got.

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

I went ahead and just put red LED's in my stock '91 cluster. It actually turned out better than I thought it would. It doesn't look great in the pictures because I was using the camera on my phone. It's actually very evenly lit throughout unlike how it looks in the photo. There are no dark areas on it, overall I'm very satisfied for the time being.







It kinda reminds me of the cluster in my '06 Grand Prix. The camera on my phone makes the red lighting look pink and distorted on both the clusters...

avilla20

awesome ive been wanting to do this on my 90 rs.

Project 3.4 Camaro

I have a question about these as well, I plan to eventually do the swap myself, but what I am wondering is if the MCD listed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSAWrswE3Yo
Is per each bulb in a unite, ie. the ultra-violet(the color I would like to get) one with 6 bulbs has a total of 6000 mcd, or just 1000? I'm pretty deadset on wanting that color, but I want them to be bright enough as well, and know that I need at least 3000 mcd for a bright enough color...Also which of their bulbs available has the best spread? I would guess the 5 bulb one over the 6 bulb one, but on the flip side the 6 bulb is brighter..

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Here's a few better pictures from tonight, they're kind of blurry because I was driving. I wasn't going 80 like my dash said though, I just swapped in a new rear with 4.10 gears so the speedo is off a bit

majobis

iTrader: (3)

Now that I have my dash and gauge cluster out, I'm looking to change over to LED bulbs. I've searched many threads, but most people who have done it seem to be 91-92 owners.

I own an 87 Iroc and looking at the rear of my cluster, I have a mix of bulbs: (9) 194 bulbs and (7) 161 bulbs.

Most people have mentioned just going with 194's, but will that affect the role of the 161's?

Also, I've seen a lot of links to various bulbs and although most agree that a wider dispersement is better, I'd like to know which visual style was chosen most successfully as my goal is uniformity all around the gauges (ie: no dead spots).

Have more of you gone with an original stock look like this?


Or, something with more encased bulbs, like this?



I know that I want 'Cool White' lighting with even dispersement but I want to make sure I have all my facts before ordering. Thanks in advance!

CAMAR0kid93

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...%2FWLED-x5.htm

Thats what you want. They have one LED on top and four on the sides pointing out, so they have a nice spread of light.

and only difference between 194 and 161 is wattage, so when doing LEDs that doesnt matter at all.

Krik

iTrader: (4)

keep in mind some bulbs you want spread on. Others you do not.

fiream

heres my dash with those leds in it...

robg91z

iTrader: (1)

So which blubs can i use for my 91? I want them red where can i buy them and are they easy to install? Which ones did bluezee28 use?

majobis

iTrader: (3)

That makes sense. Maybe the spread one for gauges and then narrow spacing for the idiot lights?

Has anyone done this type of mixed spread angles?

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

I got them from superbrightleds.com, they're easy to install; they simply pop into the socket where the old bulb was.

Krik

iTrader: (4)

turn signals, ses, bright, those types of lights need a narrow beam of lights. The ones that are intended to light up the gauge pod need to be a spread.

think of it like this... Its spot lights vs flood lights.

robg91z

iTrader: (1)

Thanks.. Do u remember which ones they were alot of them come out i just dnt really know the difference between them

Dakota W.

194 wedge I think.

3318RS

This is exaclty the one's I used on my cluster. I installed it 3 days ago.....wow what a diff!

Also, I used the 74X bulbs for the mini-bulbs in the dash. I bought 10 of the WLED-X5 bulbs, & 5 of the 74X. YES, I bought extra.

majobis

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for the tip. Out of the amount you mentioned, how many did you end up using and what locations did you choose for each?

3318RS

I happen to have my old cluster handy, so this should help...



I used 8 total bulbs of the WLED-X5, I had 2 left over that I did NOT use. If you count the number of locations, I'm pretty sure there is room for 15 of the larger bulbs (one location is of to the rt & you cannot see it in my pic). Of course, if I'm not mistaken, some of the car options dictate wether you need a light or not. My car is a pretty basic car, so it not have a bulb in each of the larger bulb locations.

I used the 74X (smaller LED bulb) on the 3 smaller bulbs you see right in the center.

The only other thing you will need is patience, as the small bulbs are a real PITA to remove from the base. Good luck & I hope the pic helps!

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

I may be ditching this idea after all... Picked up a free 4th gen dash today

Awesome-X

Doesn't mean you can't put LEDs in it lol

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

This is true. I may actually go with blue this time around, since the LS1 style dashes don't have a funky yellow tint to the numbers, plus my Aeroforce Interceptor is blue, and I can change the color of my AEM wideband to blue (has like 8 colors you can change it from). So why not have everything the same color?!

robg91z

iTrader: (1)

Whats the difference between all the bulbs in the superbrightleds website? I wouldnt know which ones to order cuz their all the same bulb but they all look different? Does anyone know which ones to actually get or which ones not to get? Are the 360* degree ones the best to get?

91 Droptop

I really want to see the blue

lolvtec

i know this is an older post but im trying white im not using normal leds i tried that its more of a spot light not a flood light im using 5 smd leds there very bright

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-194-168-T...f39bd0&vxp=mtr

Dakota W.

Yes, go with the widest angle possible.

TVIROCZ

iTrader: (1)

Whaf bulbs will give the widest angle? Also what bulbs should be used in the cluster 161 or 194? I have Pilot 194 leds from pep boys in my clutch console and ac/heater console. There kinda a dark blue

GMan 3MT

iTrader: (4)

After reading many threads on this, I'm still confused. I get that everyone points to that superbrightleds website, but the pictures there don't show the socket/base. I bought some cheap 194 LEDs on ebay to try out before I realized the '92 bulbs were one piece. Can you swap in the older style bases with new LEDs into the '92 cluster?

iansane

iTrader: (1)

You can buy empty 194 bases from the parts store if need be. I think they come in 5/8" and 1/2" sizes. Cluster is, I believe, 1/2" ?