I did not like the blue lights in the instrucment cluster.. they made the gauges look purple when mixed with the red. I like it much much better now that they are plain red for night mode.

1- disconnect (-) Battery terminal
2- Slide driver seat back and tilt steering wheel up
3- remove 3 screws under steering column (in the plastic housing)
4- undo the steering tilt Latch, and pry apart the top and bottom steering column housings.. the bottom one has the ignition light on it, be careful around the key ring

5- remove the panel at your knees that is just below the housing you removed.... there is a notch cut out in it for the tilt lever.

6- look directly UP around where your right knee should be... around where the bottom of the instrument cluster should be... you will see a hex nut screw with a philips head pattern on the screw as well... either use a philips screwdriver or a hex nut bit to remove this.

6- there is another one on the oppsite side, you will have to look for the ignition harness and finesse your way above that to the screw. the screw is above and a hair behind the harness i think. you can remove the ignition harness if you want, i didnt because its a real bitch to disconnect.

7- with the 2 screws out... tug towards you at the top of the instrument cluster, it will creak and squeak a lot. keep tugging! 3 clips will come undone. the instrument panel will finally come free and will be connected at the back with 2 harnesses. it will feel like a tight cable but tug on it and u'll see there is enough play in it to rotate the instrument cluster around.

NEVER LET THE FACE OF THE INSTRUMENT CLUSTER FACE THE GROUND!!!
that was the warning the the service manual.. apparently it will let some grease out of the dials.


8- you can either unplug the harnesses behing the cluster (very easy to do... but you will get a check engine light the first couple times u drive after that.. then it goes away)... or leave the harnesses in and just turn the cluster so u can see the back





9- Undo the LED Harness in the pic and reassemble. done.

 

I like the LED's.
But thanks for the good tutorial.

 

nice read, but i too like the blue led's.

 

+1 for the blue LEDS they look sweet

 

LOVE the blue led's but good job on your part.

 

Is it going to be hard to replace the LEDs, broken or change to other color, in the LED harness?

 

Well, I too like the blue led's. But nice job on the DIY.

 

Hmm im not sure if you can easily change the colors since i didnt actually pull out the LEDs, i just unplugged the harness that sent power to all 4 of them.

I THINK you can pull them out and replace them, i dont think they are intergrated into the circuit board but im certainly not 100% sure on that. Sorry i didnt think to check that before I threw it all back together.

I know lots of people like the blue tint... i like it for entry into the car and stuff, but i just couldnt stand the blue glowing onto the red gauges... like i said, too purple for me now the center dash color scheme looks like it actually belongs with the instrument cluster color.

Thanks for the compliments on the DIY tho! maybe a mod can move it to the DIY section.

Im going to take better night pics when i find my digicam, the RAZR doesnt cut it for pics.

 

Can't see a lot of people doing this one, but will move it to the DIY section.


S

 

I like blue... infact if I could change the red to blue, I would.

Nice DIY

 

I just like the leds when you first get in the car... would be cool to have a way to disable them from coming on when the dimmer is set with the headlights on only. I suspect that would be a lot harder though.

 

i just got around to modifying this a little in my car. instead of just disconnecting the led, i hooked it up to my alarm, so that when the alarm is armed, the blue leds blink.

 

how can to makke the rpm warning buzzer into a shift light?
Olddrager

 

Oh snap - that's super sweet. How did you do it?

 

The blue LEDs are sex.

 

i would never remove the blue leds from there although, you have done a great DIY

 

blue looks cool with red makes an impression of looking in an lcd screen , blends perfectly with my navigation unit.

 

This is an odd thread—your instructions are refreshingly clear and thorough, and it was nice of you to take the time to figure out how to do this and then post the instructions.

It's just that I can't imagine anyone not loving the blue LEDs.
It's like that old movie where Walter Matthau is this old guy who enters a room with a tray of Twinkies and a straw and proudly announces "I figured out how to remove the cream from the middle".

 

i just wish all of the led's in the car were blue including the radio display

 

kinda like this
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...202004/002.jpg
and this?
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...004/led005.jpg

 

yah for the most part however getting the radio lcd blue would be a problem

 

lurch how did you get the gauges to turn blue? i ordered the leds that change it i just don't know how to get them on

 

cool, looks good, i love the blue tho... it would be nice if i could just toggle between the 3... without taking out the cluster everytime i wanted or didnt want the blue

 

+1 on blue led
bump

 

OMFG - that blue LED setup is SEX

Lurch, is there a DIY for that? or is it just the same as this DIY but replacing the red LED w/the blue one...(sorry, too lazy to search)