I am adding some L.E.Ds to my interior and adding them to the dimmable dash lights, need a few switches before i can finish but here are my night before shots so far.
I plan on having the leds on with my dash lights and if i want em on just in general i am adding them to a switch, but i am also adding more lights on the other side, so i am adding another switch to have both lights on, 1 light on or both off. tapping into the led that, me and my father assume is sapose to light up the shifter ***, correct me if im wrong tho.
I will have day pictures up tomorrow of how it looks atm, and i will show where we are tapping in/ adding switches. let me know what yall think!

 

pretty big improvement!

 

Looks cool man. I added LED'S to my autometer set up and what an improvment

 

i havnt added em yet, ima show it soon, father forgot to grab a switch from work so we can finish lol

 

I warn you now, once you do LEDs it gets hard to stop. I have been slowly replacing incandescent with LEDs and adding new LEDs for around a year and a half and only have 2 more incandescent bulbs left, but it makes it look sharp. Good luck!!

 

where do you buy yours? i tryed to swap out the dash lights with 194r and found out... you really cant do that, you need to buy the hole light and mount assembly.... but im doing l.e.d strips, waiting for my father to get some time to assist, father is alot more experienced and he knows how to do stuff right haha, so i will have finished products no later than probably sunday....

 

For 194 bulbs they are plug and play unless you are doing something absolutely crazy. I tried out the single diode ones from Pep Boys long ago and they are complete garbage. All my dash lights for my car and the ones I've installed in other cars are from Superbrightleds.com, I usually do the 4 diode bulbs, and paint the reflector a corresponding color, in my case red, or silver as it is highly reflective. But with a thirdgen that's newer like yours it should just be bulb replacement and the light shines through the gauge. for my strips I get them from Pep boys, Superbright has them too but I don't mind the ones PB has. I have two 4", two 12" and one 36" strips for now but might be doing two more 12" later.

My dad taught me everything I needed about electrical when we installed my first stereo, and now I teach him new tricks for it so I know how that is haha.

I highly advise to solder all joints as twist caps are a complete waste and crimps can fail easily.

 

o dont worry about doing it right, me and my father are doing solder and shrink wrap with everything haha, i am doing 2 12'' strips under the dash, i will have pictures soon, we just got done figuring out what resistors to use, we are putting them on a switch, so they are on, dimmable, or off, been one hell of a learning experience hahah!!!!!!
like i said should get finished product pictures soon, should of taken some while playing around, but can easily get some tomorrow for atleast update purposes

 

ok finally got some time, we finished the l.e.ds, we have them on the dimmer circut and i can turn em on whenever i want. for the dimmer set up, we put some resistors into the circut, looks really good, not to bright with the dimmer, but if i need to see, they light the car right up.

drivers side on dimmer/resistor


other side with resistors


full bright overview


dimmer overview

 

http://www.superbrightleds.com/morei...ocket/704/962/

This is what you need to install the led bulbs. GM went to a cheaper bulb/socket combo more than likely to save money. The way you have it now it washes out the gauges. If you use the sockets and bulbs it makes the numbers and needles light up red. I used the five led wedge bulbs on mine bellow.

 

IMHO, that is way too bright to even be comfortable. I can understand doing interior lights under the dash pad for a courtesy light but something that bright shouldn't be on all the time. Red is great because it doesn't effect your night vision like say green or white would, but I think this would be more distracting. But to each man his own desires, so if it's what floats your boat then go for it.

 

Ya I think you really need to backlight them instead, right now that's just too much light in the cabin when you're driving.

Here are mine after I did the LEDs

 

cdoyle was this just using the wide angle 194's? I like the look!

 

Yours came out nice, clear and crisp.

 

I actually used LED strips and placed them behind the numbers to give me a really uniform look.

It takes more work, but I think it turns out better than the plug/play lights.

 

Smart move! I just ordered a set of overlays from ebay and i'll be installing those soon. They were on a thread earlier in the year and finally seen another set pop up!

 

wow, I like that cool white too, very crisp!
this is my dash with red.