Is it possible to take the gauge clusters white lights and change them all to red
It's an old pic, the high & low spots are gone.
http://registry.gmenthusiast.com/images/redraptor5/gauges.jpg
To answer your question, yes it is. I disassembled the cluster, removed the white light bulbs (they're similar to 194 style bulbs) from the cluster's circuit board, then soldered a pair of LEDs in each spot. This works for all first phase gen3 (95-99) clusters.
I'm not familiar with the technique on a 2k+ model, but they've been popping up here and there. Perhaps somebody more knowledgeable than myself with one will post here as well.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
As stated above, the 95-99 cluster uses a 194 style bulb, and can be replaced with your choice of 194 style bulb or LED.
The 00+ uses a much smaller bulb, and its soldered right to the board. What I did on mine was cut the bulbs off, drilled a hole in that spot, and installed some LED's I picked up from AutoZone (ricer section). The LED's have a built in resistor and gromet. I wired them into the running light wire in the cluster plug.
The Gauges are a reverse indigo over lay, and the needles light up from the LED's I installed in the cluster.
SPD RCR Z -
'02 Z24 420whp
SLO GOAT -
'04 GTO 305whp
W41 BOI -
'78 Buick Opel Isuzu W41 Swap
wow that looks crazy nice speedracer. now is it only on cav's that you can do that cuz i have a 96 sunfire and i've been asking everywhere whether or not i can make my dash have a blue glow with LED's, or does the back of the dash have a redish orangish plastic on it to make the ugly colour it is now.
what leds did you use... my odometer light is out but i think i know a way to fix it...
ok, i have been looking around alot and still to no avail, can i find a complete yes or no answer as to if i can swap the cluster from my 96 5speed manual tranny sunfire, to a 96 or newer 5 speed tranny cavalier. i want to swap because i'm wanting to put blue LED's behind my cluster but the sunfire's have that ugly orange/redish film overlay that looks like turd, and the cavaliers are just white (or so i am lead to believe.) so, can i swap clusters with little or no mods? thank you in adavance.
Thrice . wrote:96 5speed manual tranny sunfire, to a 96 or newer 5 speed tranny cavalier
Yes
but there is some additional wiring you have to do. It's not plug-and-play. A search of the forum should give you instructions as to what needs to be done, or you can research it yourself using the two clusters/harnesses. The cavi's have a green-ish film, but it's very light and just about unnoticeable if the LEDs/coloured bulbs you use are bright enough.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
Ugh, I need to go premium again. Editing would be nice.
Thrice: If I were you, I'd consider it worth it to try out the LEDs first in the Sunfire cluster. Wire them in and see how it looks before you get going with the cluster swap.
Drake: I used the standard 5mm LEDs from lsdiodes.com. Two of those and a resistor for each. I did the mod over three years ago and they're still standing up just fine. I don't know whether or not this would work on the 99's digital odometer, but I have been willing to try it - I think you just gave me a new project. On a side note, a year or so ago somebody made a post that gave a step-by-step on how to fix the 99 digital odometer light. I'll see if I can dig that thread up.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
I found it! The thread is older than I thought - closer to a two and a half years now... I even posted there a few times, which I think is why I even remembered it existing. I'll give this a go sometime soon and see if I can clean up the technique a little bit.
Anybody willing to donate a few clusters?
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
ok, for some reason i am having the dumbest time trying to get the bulbs out of the plastic retainer. i got them out of the cluster, but the little brackets that hold the bulbs then twist into the back of the cluster, or being retarted and the bulbs just won't budge. any ideas?
There's a section on this in the FAQ but the link is currently dead.
Luckily, I found
this in the web.archive.org. Scroll down to step 4. I'm saving the page for later use, jic the other one is forever dead.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
Oh, and for what it's worth - you don't need these plastic parts if you're putting in LEDs. Solder them directly to the board, you can always use a desoldering gun to remove them later.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
will i need a resistor before i solder the LED to the board. i read that somewhere but i'm not sure if that's only for cavaliers or 00' sunfires/cavaliers. thanks for all the help. you're makin this project turn out a little easier for me. this is my first time ever workin on a car, and this is my first car i've ever owned. the first one's always the experimental one.
That depends entirely on the LED you use - you need to know two things about the LED.
1) Voltage drop across the LED in volts
2) how much current the LED draws in amps
Warning; this is just a quick crash course.
After that, you can use Ohm's law (resistance = voltage/current) to determine what kind of resistor you need. The LEDs I used were a 3.5v, 20mA. Using Ohm's law this gives:
R = (12v - 3.5v)/.02A
12v is (roughly) my supply voltage. The drop across the LED is effectively -3.5v. This leaves 8.5v that must be soaked up, this gets divided by .02 (20mA = .02A), leaving 425. So I used a 470Ω (ohm) resistor, which was the next highest rating (after a 430Ω, which cuts it a bit close). If I were to wire two LEDs in serial, I'd have R=(12v-7v)/.02A=250Ω. The next highest rated resistor would be a 270Ω.
Check the Interior FAQ for further details on wiring up LEDs, as it's much more detailed.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
holy crap this is the first time i ever thought that my Computer Engineering and Electrical courses would be needed lol. to bad it's been 2 years since i've sat in on those classes. ok, so i believe my LED's are 3v. so using R= V/I i need the closest resistor to 450ohms. whats the closest resistor to 450? cuz that i have no freakin clue. thanks for ur help m8.
oh yeah, and my cluster runs in series. i know this from takin 2 AA batteries taping them together (to test the LED's) and decided to test a bulb while twisted into the cluster. low and behold all 5 of the main bulbs emitted a faint glow. so would i still need resistors? cuz now i'm confused as hell. thanks again m8.
hey happy new years to all. but aside from that, anyone know of any sites, other then black cat customs, that do gauge cluster overlays? i want black on blue, then use the blue LED's for the needles, like what speedracerZ did. that looks so goddamn sick....
