Hey, thanks for the info. Agree a single LED replacement would be problematic for the reasons you mention. It's either replace with 1x OEM bulb, or do the whole lot of LEDs.
Dash light replacement in an 80? OEM vs new LED (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter cclemow
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- bulbs dash lights led
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An update: I took out the dash carefully following this YouTube video and didn't break any clips (that I know of)! Replaced with new bulb to find… D still did not work 
Confirmed this by switching the N and D bulbs back and forth. So there's something else going on. Spoke with previous owner and with the L480E swap it turns out he's hacked the dash light wiring to activate the correct shift position based on the position of the L480E transmission. Unfortunately he can't remember specifically how he did it as it was 6+ years ago but guessed he "fiddled with the relay" to get it working, and that maybe the D wire is shorting out somewhere. D worked when I bought the vehicle, but after a little while sort of 'sputtered out' over the course of a week or two. I have no idea how to troubleshoot or fix, but I have a few other electrical things I want done by an auto electrician so I'll see how keen they are to troubleshoot this problem. That is all 
Confirmed this by switching the N and D bulbs back and forth. So there's something else going on. Spoke with previous owner and with the L480E swap it turns out he's hacked the dash light wiring to activate the correct shift position based on the position of the L480E transmission. Unfortunately he can't remember specifically how he did it as it was 6+ years ago but guessed he "fiddled with the relay" to get it working, and that maybe the D wire is shorting out somewhere. D worked when I bought the vehicle, but after a little while sort of 'sputtered out' over the course of a week or two. I have no idea how to troubleshoot or fix, but I have a few other electrical things I want done by an auto electrician so I'll see how keen they are to troubleshoot this problem. That is all 
An update: I took out the dash carefully following this YouTube video and didn't break any clips (that I know of)! Replaced with new bulb to find… D still did not work
You should test it before full install. I found mine didn’t work initially and it was just due to the bulb contact on the ribbon. The ribbon wiring can be finicky.
Do you mean test the physical metal ribbon paths that go to the globe? That's a good idea. I've put it all back together for the moment as I need the car today, but I will check this in the near future now I'm familiar with how the dash comes out. Thanks.
Yes but to keep things somewhat simple you can just plug in the middle section, turn the key to on (not start), cycle through the gears to see if they work and if not you can just unplug it quickly and troubleshoot. That way you arent plugging and unplugging everything and the dash is already apart.
As I mentioned mine was that the contact from the bulb and ribbon was not good and once i fixed it, no issues.
Great, thanks for the info. I'm a novice with electrics, how do you go about fixing that ribbon-bulb contact? In this case I assume the issue is the contacts have worn. Dab a little bit of solder?
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