haha well i finally got around to swapping in my #74 led bulbs into the gauge cluster. haha you know what sucks that no one pointed out in all the threads we've had discussing this? LED's ARE BIASED!!! meaning they dont' work if you have them in backward. incandescant bulbs don't give a fuck which way you put them in... pulling out the stock bulbs is kinda a PITA. just get a small pin to pry them out. it's a lot easier that tryna grab the glass and pull. then you put in the LED and hafta take careful note of which side positive and which is ground. if you're not sure connect it to a +12v and ground. it'll only work one way. then the fun part starts. you gotta trace the connections on the back of the cluster. there's a line that's marked GND that goes to the bulbs you'll be swapping. that's the ground. make sure the correct side of the holster connects to that strip when you screw in the bulbs. if you put 'em in the wrong way they will NOT light up.
idk how come no one mentioned this before. for those of you that jsut swapped 'em in without checking you might wanna go back and double check. you might have a couple that aren't lighting. haha maybe that's why some people had 'spotting issues'.
#58915, "RE: #74 LED's - you know what sucks?" In response to Reply # 2
I'm going to guess that A) you knew that they are polarized like that and B) you were just so damn excited about installing them you forgot about it.
It's good advice though. I think I would grab a sharpie and trace the path the grnd follow or the VDC. You can see them all at once and you could easily wide any contacts you hit of with a q-tip and some rubbing alcohol.
Good advice though. I bet I forget and do the same damn thing someday...
#58917, "RE: #74 LED's - you know what sucks?" In response to Reply # 3
hehe yea i know LED's are biased i just didn't really think about it. like with the 194 bulbs i swapped for LED's on the car all i had to do was plug it in and if it didn't work then turn it around. but with the gauges cluster you can't really do that. you'd hafta plug it in, reinstall the cluster, then turn on your lights. and unless you took off the black covering it'd get kinda hard to tell once you've got about 5 of them in whether the last one you added was lighting up (it's not easy to see the bulb itself you jsut see the glow coming from behind the gauge). haha that's why some people might not notice if they had some in wrong. they'd still be seeing some light just not as much as they should..
but yea just trace the strips. one've them's labled ground - that's your ground.
#58924, "RE: #74 LED's - you know what sucks?" In response to Reply # 4
Ha Ha! I just used the socket for the ashtray light to test each light to find out which side was the ground and then I installed them. Took a few minutes but I finally got them in. That actually happened to me the first time I put the LED's in my rear view mirror. I was so pissed cause I thought the light didn't work that I emailed the company. They responded quickly and told me that it was simply operator malfunction
Allan 2008 Magnetic Black 350z NISMO /1976 Austin Mini 1098 Special (export)
#59097, "RE: #74 LED's - you know what sucks?" In response to Reply # 6 Oct-04-03 11:38 AM by 95 GS red
i posted this a while ago i think, but here it is again,,,,for anyone who wants to know what is pos and neg on their clusters..... hope this helps every one out....just save it, and make it bigger so you can see the + and -...
