How many of each are needed?
Is it 6 or 7 for illumination?
Which bulb is for gear selection on dash?
Is it 6 or 7 for illumination?
Which bulb is for gear selection on dash?
LED instrument panel/gauge cluster
- Thread starter anthonycds
- Start date
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Really helpful post thanks anthonycds.After viewing Loud's LED thread, I had the urge to update most of the the bulbs behind my gauges to LEDs. No more dull lookin' gauges at night.
Bulbs replaced were the speedometer, tach, fuel, water, oil, and battery. Gear shift indicators, turn signals, and brights were updated as well. Didn't feel the need to change other bulbs such as VSC/TRAC, ABS, Brake, etc.
To remove the instrument panel, gently pull the black cluster panel finish towards you. It is fastened via clips and shouldn't break. The black panel houses the dimmer switch which can either be disconnected or just swung out of the way.
Unscrew the 2 black screws at the top and bottom corners of the instrument panel. Next, loosen the 2 bigger gold captive screws at the bottom of the inst. panel. Once loose, gently pull the panel towards you. If it doesn't move freely towards you, you need to further loosen the screws as they are connected to wire harness connectors behind the inst. panel.
Remove the glass inst. panel cover and top of the steering column cover. (thx Loud) You should now be able to slide the inst. panel to the left of the steering wheel.
Bulb locations updated
The 3 types of bulbs that were replaced
Shift indicator lights were replaced with this Type B
from autolumination.com: $3.49 ea.
I plan to change these as they are TOO BRIGHT at night.
All other bulbs. V-LEDS.com #74 6k white: $6.99/pair
Keyring light also takes the same #74 bulb which I switched out too.
I'm gunna just add some (not-so-obvious) tid bits that may help some readers.
anthonycds shows pic of three bulbs. A blue one (general panel lighting), a black one (PRND2L back-lights) and a small brown one (sit behind the batt/fuel and the oil/water gauge faces).
First, the glass 'bulb' part just pulls out of the blue/black base! I didn't know that till I found the right Youtube vid.
I could't pull the tiny Type B (or T3 type) bulb out so have to buy the whole base/bulb unit.
I removed 6 blue ones that run across the top of the cluster. Four of them are not covered by gauge faces, and two are behind the central indicator/hi beam face. See pics. They're hidden when you replace the gauge cover (yes, I painted mine orange while it was out!!).
The #74 comes in two types. Some have two wires on the base, like the ones you're replacing, and others are 'solid state' like the ones anthonycds shows. Cheap ones with two wires can overheat and melt the housing. Use the flatter, solid state ones.
Keep the bases and just push the new bulb into it.
Also, as I was playing around I wondered if the blue coating could be scratched off to make it brighter and whiter. Pics show what I did.
I'll get back to this thread with all results.
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Does a 2002 lx470 have these soldered in bulbs?? My right turn signal and oil and water temp gauges are no longer lit
I've been reading and re-reading this thread for two days and can only find one reference that might include details pertaining to 2004 models, and that was for an LX. Do the 2004 LC100 models have the same soldered LED lighting in the instrument cluster as the '04 LX470? Or are they replaceable incandescent bulbs? Asking because I'd love to upgrade to brighter bulbs if that's an option.
