17prospective buyer

Hey guys,

Well, i've diagnosed that my interior light relay is bad and so i'm scouting around for one but, with a new relay they should finally work properly.

I found a couple guys who made guides to 928 interior lighting update projects.

This more complicated LED project encompassing the whole lighting system

This guy has a tremendous guide, but it seems to focus on upgrading to LED's all around, and although i think i could pull it off, to me interior lights are way too small of a thing for all that custom soldering, calculating resistances and available voltage, and choosing the correct LED's.

This guy

This guy simply bought some VW Golf/Passat incandescent lamp holders and basically all that is needed is the wiring diagram, solder, and a soldering gun, which of course i all have.

I find with my 928 there's a fine line between doing small inexpensive projects and retrofitting the whole damn car.

What would you guys do? What would be a decent compromise for a nearly broke college guy who wants to undertake the kind of expensive projects you guys do? I would love to go through the cars electrical system thoroughly and replace whatever i find, but i do not have the time or money for that at this point in time.

Btw, this is the lamp holder that the simpler project uses, pretty alright price if you ask me, as there's only 4 courtesy lights in the cabin not including ones which do not use a switched holder.

SeanR

Both of these guys are regular, as in daily, posters here on Rennlist and what they have done, is what most of us follow or do.

NoVector

I used Ed's guide (your first link) to order my courtesy lights. He already has them linked to SuperBright's website. I've been very happy with SuperBright--very fast delivery and of the ~30 LEDs I've ordered, all have worked and only one was "off color". Nicole (Hooked on Cars) and Jager Engineering (in Canada) also sell the LEDs. All of the courtesy lights are just like replacing any other bulb--no wories about polarity, resistance, etc.

The price tag goes up a LOT when you do the outside lights.

I'll say it again for Ed's guide--it is the shiznit! He could easily sell that for $$ He has more work in that than I think I ever put into a college paper. In fact, I'm sure of it.













<<<<<<<<< Wow, it's the sign of the devil post!

GMM928

I agree with Bruce and SeanR. I followed Ed's guidance for the instrument pod and my interior lights (His guide is incredibly well done and easy to follow). I think it took me a total of 15 minutes to replace all of my interior courtesy lights once I had the LEDs. Interior lighting is now fantastic.

PHIL928

I did mine recently with the passat lights and they are brilliant and was very easy to do. The only thing I would recommend is to get the wiring harness end that connects to the light (I think they are called pig tail ends - no idea why this sounds familliar) then it's much easier than soldering and chopping the passat light fittings as you only have to crimp the new connectors onto the old wires. I kept an eye out for them on ebay and was lucky enough to get a full set of 4 for about $20 (lights and the connector ends).
I also had to do a bit of spray painting to get them black to match the interior.
Good Luck!

Alan

As one of those guys. If you are leaning towards the VW lights - you can easily add LED lamps to just those too. These are the LED bulbs that come with resistor inside so really easy to do.

The VW lights are far superior to the original Hella's (also used on ancient VW's BTW). They also have the benefit of coming in 3 colors and covering any areas where the trim has shrunk back from the edge of the roof holes... very common..

I would not change the door lights - to me they are fine as is. My car has 1 in the roof and 2 more in the hatch - varies by year - total of 5 + non-switched one over CE panel (also varies by year).

Alan

17prospective buyer

Hey, thanks for the advice, i may just venture out and do the entire LED outfitting project. It really depends on cost, not time. Ed's source for LED's (Superbright) is a fantastic site, you can size the type of LED you need easily. So i might actually calculate the total cost for converting all or most of the interior lights, then see what i feel. Also, i see they have some very nice license plate lamp units, might very well get one of those for my new license plate lighting setup rather than the one i was going to use.