Randy V

Ed?

Ed Scherer

Sorry... just now noticed this.

I think there might have been some physical size constraint issue, but I really don't remember.

odurandina

Fantastic thread.

islaTurbine

Can someone tell me the exact placement of part #9 from this photo?

Rob Edwards

I found this picture in my folder on '78 #241 that I did last year. That washer is the shim to get the bevel gear to line up with the selector **** gear.

Michael Benno

Im in the middle of this change-over on my 1992. I have all the bulbs in the gauge cluster and did a test power up. However I have two issues that I could use help with:

First, I seem lost the bright/dim toggle on the general backlighting, I am using these 194 LED Bulb - COB LED - T3.25 Miniature Wedge Base - 135 Lumens for the backlight. These are dimmable bulbs and I have used these before in my 1988 dash with success. Are others experiencing this loss of a feature when converting to LED?



Secondly, I seem lot have lost the illumination at the HVAC/radio/ashtray with the headlights/parking lights are on. Is there any continuity dependancies between the backlighting of the cluster and the accessories? The pod switches still have backlighting when the headlights are on.

Petza914

The regular dimmer won't dim led bulbs. If you want dimmabiliry, you need one of Ed's LED dimmer solutions that hooks up to the regular dimmer wheel but changes the resistance or something to make.it work with LEs, but then you have to convert every bulb in the dash, cluster, and HVAC to led so the dimmer works with them.

Michael Benno

I dont think my issue is related to the LED bulbs. I swapped them back to the original incandescent bulbs and no change. I have only one setting for backlighting, and I have no voltage going to the illumination of any of the pod switches or center console accessories. Basically I have no voltage to the Black/Blue line. So it must be unrelated to the LED swap. I'll need to research the wiring diagram to figure out where I am loosing the voltage to that system. It looks like the problem is upstream of the dimmer controller

Petza914

As you troubleshoot this, make a jumper wire and connext the two wires that go to the dimmer rheostat together. That will make sure that the issue isn't the dimmer itself and the lights will all be full bright. If the lighting doesn't return when jumpering the dimmer, the problem is somewhere else.

Alan

As Petza says when you have fixed this - they still won't dim acceptably - you need a PWM solution to dim LED's like Ed's and all pod/console illumination will need to be changed to LED.

Alan

Michael Benno

Dimming issue solved
i figured out my issue, it was a simple fuse issue (fuse 9). I must have overlooked the fuse to the dimmer when I was checking the "instrument cluster fuse".

Dimmable LED's work with the stock rheostat
The LED's I used were dimmable and they do in fact dim when using the OEM dimmer, and it retained the Bright/Dim setting when using the headlights/parking lights/ Here is a video demonstrating the dimming. The dimmable range is not very much because these LED are far too bright to begin with.

Some LEDs are too bright for the POD
I will point out these primary backlight bulbs I used are far too bright at 135 lumens. Too bright on the eyes in daytime and too bright at the lowest dimmable setting. I see light leaks through the black filament. I would NOT recommend using this bulb, I would recommend using something with about 25%-50% less lumens (75-100lumens). Something like this bulb, 194 CAN Bus LED Bulb - 5 SMD LED Tower - Miniature Wedge Base, would be 65 - 85 lumens depending on the color temp you want would be a good choice.

Some of the colored warning lights are also too bright because they are used at nigh when driving and they can be hard on the eyes. These would include the blue at 4.5-lumens (brights) and green at 15-lumens (parking, blinker, PDD), and specific red lights at 8 lumens (Parking and brake test). My solve for this the to add a piece of colored painters tape to these lights. It offers just enough opacity to dim the bulb.

Ghost Illumination
I found several warning lights will stay dimly illuminated after shutoff as long as the information bar stays illuminated. This include: ABS, "P" for automatics, and Parking Brake. I am going to revert these back to incandescent so I don't have that issue anymore.