Replacing GEN 1 Instrument Cluster bulbs with LED's

Green Machine

Green Machine

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:cool: This spring when things warm up, I'm going to be replacing the stock 194/168 bulbs in my instrument cluster & interior, with LED's to freshen things up a bit.

Does anyone have a Gen 1 instrument cluster loose, that can tell me how many 194 bulbs to replace in it? I cant seem to find a pic of the back of one. Thanks in advance.
 
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Much better looking imo is to wire in a strip of led's into the top and or bottom of the cluster with the led's shining down or up... it give a much more balanced look and eliminates all the hot spots where the bulbs are.
 
I want mine different colors, I want my needles red and numbers rich blue, like the newer Infinitys
 
kustomizingkid said:
Much better looking imo is to wire in a strip of led's into the top and or bottom of the cluster with the led's shining down or up... it give a much more balanced look and eliminates all the hot spots where the bulbs are.
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i would think that would make the (whole instrument panel) look kinda glary....I cant vision that in my minds eye. got a pic Brandon?
 
kustomizingkid said:
Much better looking imo is to wire in a strip of led's into the top and or bottom of the cluster with the led's shining down or up... it give a much more balanced look and eliminates all the hot spots where the bulbs are.
Click to expand...

+1 this is what i did because when i put in the white face gauges the leds weren't bright enough and now it looks awesome ill see if i can find my pick of it if not ill go take some tonite.
 
It turned my cluster bright blue. I didnt like it because then it didn't match any of the other instrumentation, so I changed it back to bulbs.
 
GreenMachine, here are some pics linked from the Torino forums just to give you an idea:

Stock:

PC096148.jpg



Green LED strip:

P9217335A.jpg
 
whats up with the 2nd photo? theres green every where! lol im going to guess that its edited. but i like the idea!
 
I Benz uses just two light sources for the gauges. They are above and outside (front side) of the gauges. Not back lit. Bought two LED lights from Advance Auto.

FAIL.

They were so dim that even on a back country road I could barley read anything. So before you go all crazy, do research to get the exact lamps needed. Not all LEDs are made the same.
 
Has anyone thought of using an electroluminescent sheet behind the instrument bezel? I've replaced all the interior lights in my wife's '97 LSC with blue LED's and it looks pretty cool. I'm thinking of installing a blue EL sheet behind the instrument cluster. I've also got some blue LED's in my '96. I eventually want to convert all the incandescent lights in both cars to LED's or EL sheets/strips. I like the cool ambient qualities of the blue LED's. I want to get to work on the instruments, but I just haven't had the time lately.
 
Sorry it took so long i kept forgetting about posting the pic of my dash with the WHITE LED strips behind the cluster. They turned everything blue it's strange. Here it is:D


IMG_0393.jpg
[/IMG]



This is with the dash lights off. :shifty:



IMG_0392.gif
 
DieselDan said:
It turned my cluster bright blue. I didnt like it because then it didn't match any of the other instrumentation, so I changed it back to bulbs.
Click to expand...

Leds also make hotspots on the cluster, meaning there are dim and bright spots.
 
i was going to say dont do it, because i tried it in my 97 cluster. it doesnt matter what kind of " white " led bulbs you put in the cluster it is going to change it to blue. thats because the black gauge faces have a color plastic they are made out of. thats what give our cars green lighting, if you notice when you take the bulbs out how come they arent green bulbs? because the green is in the actual plastic of the gauges, white led's are just like a 10,000k hid bulb, they have a blue tint to them even if they claim they are white, they are not truely white led's. so when you put them into the cluster with a green tint to the faces, you end up with a blueish aqua light, thats why i took mine back out of my 97 and went to stock. i have a white face gauge cluster that was in my 97, this is what i tried the led's in, i didnt like it so i removed the whole cluster and put a factory one back in, i loved the white faces during the daytime, but at night is sucked.
 
Mine had horrible hot spots that's why I used a strip of LEDs I glued it to the housing and it made a wold of difference I still need to add one around the edges for the tach and gas/temp gauges
 
you can change the needle color easy, with gauge needle paint, its all over ebay, thats wht they used on my 97 cluster its red needle paint, it works awesome.
 
well maybe you should of revived the led thread in the ls section and not the mark viii section. that would only make proper sense wouldn't it.
 
So I just got in my LEDs for my cluster today, I like the idea of possibly putting in an LED strip eventually, but I would like to do something multi-colored in the essence of being able to change the interior colors from red, blue etc. I'm just wondering if any of y'all have done this or thought about it? The LEDs i bought are pink, I wanted to do something different than the norm. Hopefully it isn't to pale of a pink but more of a bold color...starting to rethink the color choice already.
 
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