in the day I do body work, by night, I do electrical work
I always have been irritated by how lousy my gauge cluster worked. my pcb (printed circuit board) must have had a few glitches in it because some bulbs would be dim, one wouldnt work at all unless I pushed on the gauge cluster in that area, and another would always be on unless i turned on all the gauge lights, then it would go off!
could not figure it out as its always been that way even before I re wired the car, must have been the pcb!
well I threw it out, and am hard wiring it all. I am also honing my soldering skills in the mean time.



that red wire is the power wire for all my gauge lighting.
next day I get time to work on it, i will run the ground wire.
then I need to wire up my blinkers and high beam indicator, and lastly, the gauges. those should all be much easier then this bulb socket crap.

 

just a jack of all trades eh?

 

Great Idea!! Please keep us updated on how it turns out.

 

That looks like it will be much better. Just make sure to get those wires all secured nicely when it's done and it should last foreverrrrr

 

thats the plan, and even if not, it should be easy to repair in the future, i can have my cluster out in five minutes now

Also have a buttload of white led's I plan to put in the cluster to replace the 168/194 bulbs. then it will be really trick.

 

good idea keep us updated...

 

Man, I've been trying to do crap like this. Once my AC pulley is swapped (just got that tool today) I got all the maintenance and little crap done. I would like to do this as well. Are there LED's that fit directly in those sockets?

Try to take lots of pics of the final wiring, I've never done anything like this before.

 

Tada!

power and ground has been run to all the gauge lighting!
tomorrow ill lug a battery in the house to test and make sure all the lights are working

after that is confirmed, I will wire in the blinkers, and hi beam indicator.

then lastly, the gauges.
there will be no excuse why something shouldnt work properly in the finished product. I am also going to wire in the upshift light into my ecm so in the ecm settings, i set the shiftpoint, and it will kick on the factory upshift light when i need to shift. cool stuff.

for LED bulbs, direct replacement, I buy from this website:

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...ini-wedge.html

my choice will be in the first category of 194 bulbs "WLED Miniature Wedge Base bulbs"
WLEDx5 in natural white (5500k) its about as pure white as they offer, and that bulb part number WLEDx5 is offered in the widest bema of 220 degrees. I hope that is wide enough to properly light my gauge cluster. only $3.94 per bulb.. X 11 sockets..

further down, two categories, "
WLED Miniature Wedge Base bulbs with High Power SMD LEDs - 360 type"

that offers full 360degree lighting, part # WLED-xHP5, but at $5.95 a piece.. hard to say if its worth it or not. I need to do more investigating.

 

Couldn't help myself, had to test it now!
and lets see, hot wired my cluster to the battery, and look at that, every bulb lights bright as ever just like they are supposed to! first try! not bad for an amateur eh?






took the pics on my 2meg pix camera, and it sucks at dark pics, but you get the idea, its much brighter in person, just like stock. looks dim in the photos. but the point is every bulb location was equally bright in real life.

 

gauge sensor wires wired in
just gotta wire in the power and ground for the gauges/shiftlight/turn signals and hi beam indicator, and we are on a roll

anyone know where to get a 12pin male/female connector? I wanna make this legit.

 

go to pick and pull. Thats where i get all my connectors at.

 

Probably find something on www.mouser.com

 

thanks for the link but i literally just picked up a 4x3 pin molex connector from radioshack
hopefully I have it done tonight for final pics

 

Wow, that looks good. So the whole setup only needed a 12-pin connector, sounds nice and simple, don't be stingy with the pics when the connector is all wired in. I'm not a pioneer, I'm lazy, and only like to copy others proven good work.

 

ended up using all 12 pins, so thats good! everything is done except the shiftlight socket.. i thought i had the sockets up in my house, but i believe they are down in my garage.. but the connector is all wired. just have to solder that last shift light socket wires up.

anyways, next step is to trace the wires in my car to what they need to go to in the dash and call it good

 

I hope the schematics I have in the chilton or haynes or whatever I got will cover it. You actually going to dig for it or just try to work it out from the wiring diagrams?

My number one pet peeve on vehicles is dealing with wiring, especially when it is chasing a problem or repairing something. Upgrading or adding something isn't as bad, but still tedious

 

Now that the gauges light up, you can see you're overheating & your alternator took a dump on you. hahaha
Good work, I got a 78 Trans Am that needs similar work.

 

at least I got a full tank of gas

 

x2 I have an '87 IROC that needs similar work

 

all lights test: PASS

I also tested the voltmeter and water temp gauge, they function properly, I have to assume oil pressure, tach, and fuel level do as well

I also went with red led's for the turn signals now, and in the bottom right corner, that bright light is actually an amber led, and it will function as my shift up light that will light up at a specified rpm triggered by my ecu.

 

thats sick....i wana add a shift light 2 mine also...

 

every 90 and older thirdgen i know for sure has the factory shift up light in the bottom right corner, its just a matter of plugging in a socket and doing some research on wiring

 

Awesome idea, and it looks so sick and makes the whole design simple. You have done so much stuff that improve on our cars you should work for GM Your ideas are awesome and one of a kind. Oh, love the red turn signals too

 

ok thanks...were would the wire b running to?...or coming from?...

 

thats the fun part, if you have a factory ecu, you need the software to edit it and enable shift light control

 

o ok ic...i guess that is the fun part...im gona have to wait on that cuz i finish my engine first...and i dont kno how to do all of that yet...

 

Look at that, of coarse a camera phone quality pic is all you guys get but everything works right off the bat
all gauges are accurate, yes i am on empty, lol.
oil is pegged because I dont have the sending unit plugged in.
the red led's are way too bright! they blind me during test blinking.. I will pull the plexi glass and hit those two spots with some niteshade to darken it. Hope that helps

check out that bright orange square. great shift light huh? if it wasnt so bright in the pic, you could tell its the factory SHIFT ^ indicator led'd out of coarse will come on around 6500rpm

another side note.. my blinkers come on solid with my low beam headlights on.. strange, its getting some sort of backfeed with low beams only.. not sure why that is except maybe with hi beams on it pulls away enough voltage that the led do not turn on. when i test for voltage between the power and ground side of the led im getting aproximately 1.9volts. but my multimeter draws just enough resistance to turn off the led when i test for the voltage lol.
so I either need to order some better led's or put in a load resistor like you sometimes have to do for blinkers on the exterior of the car to work properly.

 

thats 2 sick...

 

Finally saw it in person along with the body work. You are a pro bish Looks sick!