I think they put that in for the light, like the earlier cars had, but it didn't actually come installed in the later cars with that dash. They put a small light in the rear view mirror to illuminate the console area

 

Just swapped over all my gauge lights to LEDs. I used 7000K 'cool white' LEDs, and spray painted the orange part of the dash trim with some chrome spray paint for reflectivity and to do away with the rather unappealing orange toned lights.

I also found two lights that had enough corrosion on the contact points that they were no longer working. I took some fine grit sandpaper and worked it inside the light mount where the leads from the light contacts the holder, and the two little nubs on the sides of the holder that contact the circuit board. So definitely check your contact points when doing this if you have any lights that still won't light up after you tried reversing how it was inserted. Before
After

 

I have done this a bit different. I found that not all the sockets were working anymore when trying to replace the bulbs with T10 LED's.

So i ordered a couple of 12v LED strips and soldered these to a T10 socket each. Works perfect! A couple of pictures of installation:





In dark the lighting looks the same as the red illumination posted before.

 

that looks really good and good idea. Question: how the hell did you take the 'glass' off without removing the entire cluster. I screwed around with one at a wrecker (not going to practice on my car) and I was instructed to remove the dash pad, remove the speedo cable, take out the cluster assembly to get to the back to remove the bulbs. It looks like you didnt do that

 

You just take it all out, take it apart, stick it back in to test the bulbs, then take it out again, then put it back together. The front lens is only held in with 6-10 screws.

 

That's not necessary indeed. Just remove the front black panel with some torx. Behind that you find a bunch 7mm screws. Undo those and you can remove the plastic and a black metal plate. Behind that are the gauges as you see in my last picture in the previous post.

 

Sorry if this has been asked and I missed it, but does anyone of know of an LED that is the same color as the factory orange firebird gauge lights?

Thank you.

 

Its been referenced in other threads. I do not remember the exact wavelength. But some part of me thinks its in the 660nm range. That might be too red though.

The wavelength is most likely between 600-660 but I cannot remember if it was listed exactly on the boards.

 

Doing a mix of colors! So far I lost two screws and broke a needle 🤗



🏁. 🏁 🏁 🏁 🏁

 

I put 194 replacement LEDs in mine from Superbrightleds.com. Sort of a bluish-white color. Much brighter than the original incandescents. Put one in the heater control panel as well.

How do you get to the bulbs in the factory radio?

 

Took a few iterations to get right. I painted the needles white and the Orange reflective surfaces white also. Eventually I was able to add enough bulbs and got the blue light even.

 

Man.. that firebird sits really pretty...

 

You put green LEDS in your turn signals?

Did you put a blue LED for the high beam indicator?

How about the idiot lights on the bottom row? Like the SES and parking brake light? Did you LED those as well?