well i had this problem, i got my LEDs from www.Autolumination.com. i had to put my new Dremel to work and shave some of the plastic sleeve off of the bulb. heres an illustration that says it all, but ill explain all of it below:



Ok well my bulbs came with a lil pastic sleeve over the actual bulb, so i had to shave some off ALL-AROUND (pic makes it seem only on 2 sides) so it was at the same lvl as the bulb, i also shaved some off of the actual part that plugs in, there the little metal wires are bent over. This way the bulb will plug right into the bulb sockets, just push it with some minimal force and ull feel it lock in.

P.S. jusst so u know, what i didnt!

1. The bulbs come out straight up and out, no need to twist them!

2. To locate the bulbs wich will actually light the instrument panel and not the engine signs and so on, remove the sockets, and ull see the transparent plastic used to scatter the light.

3. I thought it was 9 bulbs for the instrument panel, but its actually 7, so i used the extra 2 on the cigarett lighter ring and key ring.

4. Be careful with the dremel/what ever else u use, so u dont damage the LED bulb or wires at the bottom.

Happy Modding!:thumbsup

wait, this goes where?

u mean the post or the bulbs? sorry just trying to give something back to 2gnt...sorry it was lame and prolly common sense.

Anyways, about your question, #74 LED bulbs replace the incandecent ones on the back of the instrument panel. i used red because i did not need to sand the orange filter on the back of the gauges to get red light thru, but for any other colors you do. you can also replace you key ring and cigarett lighter ring with these bulbs, available from autolumination.com and superbrightleds.com aswell i believe. sorry if i didnt answer ur question, i didnt know exactly what u wer asking.

i want my guages to shimmer out white light!! someone needs to do this, so i can copy, cuz i won't try. ;-)

well only way would be to sand the yellow/orange film on the back of the gauges and use white LEDs, green might work but im not sure, look on google how the additive properties of light and filters work, bacause they work diff.( Ex: blue filter + yellow filter = green etc, but blue light + yellow light =/= green or something like that, been a while since physics class) just make sure ull get the color u want will filter thru the film on the gauges. most likely ur only option will be to sand them or indiglos, lucky for me i wanted red, and the film is orangish so it goes thru, good luck tho man, ill try to dig up that info for you tomorrow. just in case, what other colors would u want?:wary

oh, nm, that goes in the gauges. mine are all blue.

96rst, pretty sure there are a few writeups. the only thing about your case is that you WILL have to remove the needles in order to take off the gauge faces and sand. and other than that..just use common sense..pull out the incandescent bulbs and replace them with LED's via the writeup

and if you want white..there should be no filters necessary. LED lights are pretty pure white versus filament burning lights. i would think frosting up the diffuser or putting a more opaque peice of material behind the gauges would be beneficial to ensure optimal distribution and prevent spotting.

96rs-t

First try and see if you like it, I tried white wide angle 11000mcd led in the mirror control switch and it did not look white. As a matter of fact it looked disgusting. Color was like taking a flash light and shining it through newspaper and not white like on expansive lux cars.

pics please. As a side note, I recently did this to a '72 Super Beetle, but thats because I hate German electrical workings and wanted to make it all my own. Did you need to build a seperate power supply, or did you find 12V LED's?

I just tried the led. Never did the whole dash but it is in the plans. I have tried blue and white. I was disappointed with white and never took the pics of it but for the blue ones I have quite detailed pictures.

For power supply you can have different systems the simplest one to use resistors to limit the current, a slightly more advanced way is to use voltage regulator + resistor to control voltage and current even more complicated way is to use pvm circuits azdave is a pro with those. Search for his posts.

Here is my write up which is pretty useless except for the pics of blue led in the mirror switch with different light conditions.

http://forums.2gnt.com/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=7&topic_id=90772&mode=full


Hope this helped. It would be hard to capture the shade of white that led gives off with camera in the dark

PS

12 v LEDs are hard to get and they are more expansive, also u will still need to use resistor with them unless there is one build in.

Originally posted by edxmon
well i had this problem, i got my LEDs from www.Autolumination.com. i had to put my new Dremel to work and shave some of the plastic sleeve off of the bulb. heres an illustration that says it all, but ill explain all of it below: Ok well my bulbs came with a lil pastic sleeve over the actual bulb, so i had to shave some off ALL-AROUND (pic makes it seem only on 2 sides) so it was at the same lvl as the bulb, i also shaved some off of the actual part that plugs in, there the little metal wires are bent over. This way the bulb will plug right into the bulb sockets, just push it with some minimal force and ull feel it lock in. P.S. jusst so u know, what i didnt! 1. The bulbs come out straight up and out, no need to twist them! 2. To locate the bulbs wich will actually light the instrument panel and not the engine signs and so on, remove the sockets, and ull see the transparent plastic used to scatter the light. 3. I thought it was 9 bulbs for the instrument panel, but its actually 7, so i used the extra 2 on the cigarett lighter ring and key ring. 4. Be careful with the dremel/what ever else u use, so u dont damage the LED bulb or wires at the bottom. Happy Modding!:thumbsup

nice, looks red hot lol.
But i like to do it blue led instead no offense.

What watt/voltage bulbs did you you use?? this comes in handy also.
Because i changed the bulbs from my map light to a bright blue 12v and it blew my fuse for my radio.

Hey, atleast ur improving... :rolleyes this thread is ONLY 8 months old. I dk about voltage, just go buy the #74 LEDs and ur done, DIRECT replacement for stock incandecent.

Originally posted by edxmon
Hey, atleast ur improving... :rolleyes this thread is ONLY 8 months old. I dk about voltage, just go buy the #74 LEDs and ur done, DIRECT replacement for stock incandecent.

Nice, thanks.


When I started with the internet thing, I was like your avatar edxmon lol..

what kinda led did you use to replace your map light? most of these pre-made direct swap led bulbs have a resistor built into them. if you use a plain LED and try to just rig it into the socket you're gonna blow a fuse. it's not worth the time or effort to make your own. it'll prolly end up being more expensive anyways.

www.autolumination.com

i always buy from there. cheap and easy to swap.

Dang Macubed! havent seen u in a while! but yea, Autolumination For the Win!