For those of you who plan on doing the LED conversion i have found a way of saving time and soldering. As most of you know http://www.superbrightleds.com/ sells 12v premade leds in #74 casings. I found out this last week while installing these bulbs that they do not all fit in the original dash light holes. Most of the light in the surround dash i.e. power windows, hazard light and what not have a small screw in type bulb. The #74 LEDs only work for the hvac, cig, keyhole and ashtray/change holder. I will still able to use the #74 LEDs for the rest of the places by doing a little cutting and trimming and it was not to the dash parts. The #74 LED's you can buy from superbrightleds.com are LEds with the resistors already soldered to them and a plastic base casing that can be removed with some pliers. look here http://www.superbrightleds.com/specs/74_t15.htm, at the bottom of the leds is the socket that allows you to plug it into the factory wiring. This colored plastic plug can be removed from the LED and it still works perfectly. it's only a casing with a little glue holding it together. I was able to remove the led with the resistors and solder it to the factory spot where the old small bulbs once resided. with a little testing i was able to find which way the led must be soldered without having to find the ground and power. Pull out the old bulb, turn on the lights and test the led by placing one wire to one connection and the other lead to the other connection. if it does night light up flip it 180 and it should work. if it doesn't you might check to make sure that their is a connection with the LED and the electric connection in the factory part. once you find the right direction trim up the leads and solder it in. I saved alot of time doing it this way than making my own leds with resistors. Also another note, the factory stock led's in the cruise control do not need a resistor. you can just solder in new led's from radio shack or where ever, just make sure they line up with the houseing. Hopefully i am making sense and make it a little easier for everyone else. if you have any questions, drop me a line.

josh

Good info man points to you.Its nice to see people take time out and give us a hook up.

Not to sound like a dummy, but what does doing this conversion achieve? Are y ou the same guy that did your taillights in LED's? Thats what I thought this thread was about, lol.

It makes your dash lights / guage lights all the color you want. I was thinking of making all of mine blue, then I saw how much work it is.

Originally posted by DJ420a
Are you the same guy that did your taillights in LED's? Thats what I thought this thread was about, lol.

I saw the thread title and thought someone else was doing an all LED tailight conversion too. Maybe should've put "Dash Lighting LED conversion" in the subject line so it can be searched easily later.

Great info though for those changing interior lighting schemes.

I'm still working on my full tailight conversion project and showed off part of it last night at a az2gnt gathering.

Originally posted by Journeyski
. Most of the light in the surround dash i.e. power windows, hazard light and what not have a small screw in type bulb. The #74 LEDs only work for the hvac, cig, keyhole and ashtray/change holder.

The lights in the dash just pop into those little screw in holders and they are the same exact lights as the ones in the ash tray, cig, key, hole nine yards. You just put a push pin down in between the light and the screw in plastic piece and they pop right out, then you stick your #74 bulb back in the hole. They are identicle in every way, so what's the problem again?

Hey guys, here is a site where you can get leds for the dash (#74) and be able to install them w/o any modification. Just pop the old ones out, and put the new ones in.

www.autoillumination.com

They even have the regular colored-glass #74's!

Ive been meaning to to get some for mine, but I just put some red touch-up paint on the bulbs and they shine really bright and red. They have worked great for about 4/5 months now. Ha ha!

How many leds do you need to do the conversion

Just for clarification, the dash lights in my 98 gs i.e. fog light switch, power mirror switch, rear wiper switch, cruise control switch, hazard lights, rear defroster switch and AC switch are NOT #74 bulbs. Even the screw in type #74 LEDs you can buy from superbrightleds.com do not replace the lights in these switchs. The lights/bulbs i pulled out are 2mm wide and 5mm soldered into a screw type base. I just wanted to let everyone know my problem and how i was able to corret it and pass the information on to everyone else. Every book and info says #74 but for some reason that is not true for my car. Also i wanted to pass on the info that to save time in buying LEDs and resistors that there was a place you could buy them already soldered together. All you have to do is pull the base casing off the LED and it works fine. You can then solder them into place saving you alot of time. 6 leds are needed for the center consoul a/c and switch's. 3 leds are needed for cig, ignition and ashtray. 6 LEDs are needed for the left consol switch's (3 #74 or 3.8mm wide LEDs and 3 3mm LED's to replace the stock LEDs in the cruise contol switch) And i believe 8 #74 screw in type LEDs for the instrument cluster.

Yeah I popped open a defroster switch I picked up at the junk yard and was like "WTF is this shit?" It's welded directly to the circuit board and coverd in a yellow plastic. Weird.