soontobered84

Kurt,
Dan will not have to do any wedge work as both of his cars have digital dashes. I'm guessing you knew that, though.

LEDs WILL fail. I don't think that mankind has created anything that will not fail, but the incidence of that failure should be less than with incadescent bulbs. LEDs have polarity also. That can make them a PITA to install especially on the older cars.

The_Remora

I'm actually taking the day off today to work on putting my '87's dash back together with LED's both for waring lights and instrument back lights. I'll report back on how it goes once I know I've got it all solved.

Tom in Austin

Thanks, adding to my list for upcoming pod-out projects ...

soontobered84

I hear you Tom.

I'm just trying to finish up the complete LED pod replacement in the Stepson so I can drive it to our GTG this Saturday morning at Andrew's in Bartonville.

SeanR

Doing this today on an 88. Very straight forward and the instructions are great.

auzivision

Sean, those sure look the ones I installed that didn't last three years. Did you get them from Nicole?

First LED quit with less than 20 hours, next maybe 50 hours, and the last one quit after 100 hours tops. Either the LED failed after not much use, or the plug/wedge you showed in the last photo came unplugged.

Having all three fail in less than three years under extremely light use is what concerns me and want others to know. Maybe I’m the only one that’s had an issue. Has anyone around here used this setup for a few years or more without failures?

SeanR

I don't know where he got them from, I've not installed a set in my car but do know of one other car we put some in that had one LED fail after a couple of months.

Has anyone let Nicole know that the LED's were not of very good quality?

blown 87

That looks just like the same set I got from Nicole, down to the foil it is packed in.
Had Garage 9 on the instruction sheets.

I do know that Nicole would not sell them if she was aware of problems with them.
So some one needs to let her know..

auzivision

I never said anything until now and don't know if it's a widespread problem. It really didn’t bother me much until all three quit since I rarely drive at night.

Looking at your photos, those sure look familiar right down to the aluminum foil anti static packaging. I forgot how much that LED is buried in plexiglas... it might be an overheating issue.

When you stick that wedge into the socket, what's hold the two together? IIRC, the socket is a push in and turn that hold the bulb in place. I’m thinking the work around is held together with friction. If so, you might wrap the socket/wedge combo with self vulcanizing tape or something.

Edit... both of us noticing the foil packaging... now that's funny.

Edit # 2 - I send Nicole an email alerting her about my situation and comments I made in this thread.

jthwan22

The individual bulbs are polarizing. Which mean you have 50/50 chance of getting it right the first time. If it does not light up you will need to pull it out and turn it 180 and plug it back in and try again. I did not change the PRND32 bulbs last time because it was under another circuit board. Now, the D bulb is out. I am not looking forward going back in. I won’t worry about getting different color (ie: white, red, green etc) Just get white for all the bulbs because the interments panel will change color for you.

WYIT job: Fix you speedo, voltage, gas level errors etc with everything out.

Hilton

I started replacing my dash bulbs with led's in my '89 - did the console (clock, HVAC, ac button etc.).. and the pod switches.. then I decided I don't like the look of white LED's in there - it was just too cold looking.. so am instead replacing all the bulbs with new 1.2W filament bulbs as per original, and going back to the warmer original.

Cleaning all the connections to the dash, pod, grounds etc. and replacing the brightness potentiometer makes them look much better.

jsherid1

It was my car that experienced the failure on one LED in the Pod (that Sean refers to). It started off flickering then failed entirely, suspect it may be a connection that came loose based on the failure mode. That also implies that it is my fault, not the fault of the kit.