Very nice. I just ended up soldering the resistor inline in the wrie harness right before the plug. Hopefully you're gonna put this all on a web page and not jsut in these posts? (hint, hint)

 

I know about the desoldering braids and bulb sucker thingies but I always forget to get them because I've gone so long w/o using those

I have a mini-screwdriver from my swiss army knife, but that's the only one I have.

Yeah, I do my stuff pretty ghetto-style but it seems to work ok for me so far

I'd make a webpage, but I don't know html... I never bothered to learn.

 

that's ok. haha, everytime you post another instruction here I cut and paste it to an email and email it to myself. I just keep adding to the last one so when it's all said and done, I'll have a complete write up to reference. haha. plagiarism at it's best! tell, ya what, you keep posting here and when you get done, I'll save you the trouble and email it to you, or if you have capability of hosting a webpage, I'll make a page for the write-up.

 

Was bored tonight so I started on the blue dash. Got the ignition light done. Not the best picture; this looks better in real time.


Zach

 

Thanks keisur!
That's another reason I haven't made a offical writeup: I don't have any webspace. I'd have to use tripod or something.

Ok, the ECT switch (for those w/ an auto)
-Once you figure out a way to get the two clips to release, and push the switch open, it's pretty easy from there.
-I pulled the part that you touch off, and pulled off the label, and it's light blue, so I didn't bother doing anything else with it. Just stuck it back on and moved on.
-The PCB board is held in by two clips.
-the light is a green LED. 2V when it's on.
-The leg next to the text ("B89PB586" on my switch) is +. other side is -.
-Desolder, solder in new one.
-That's it!

 

Hmmm... how are you going to get around this: the LED needs around 3.5V to light up nice and bright?

Zach

 

cig light.
-there's a little grey bulb holder that confused me. I couldn't figure out how the bulb was held in. Ends up there's two thin flaps of plastic on either side that clip into the bulb as it slides in. Actually, the bulb's contacts are soldered to the two metal tabs you see sticking up. Anyway, pull the flaps out, pull the bulb out.
-break off the bulb's contacts, and slide the tabs back in, since they're the contacts for the holder.
-Solder the LED to the tabs sticking out the top. ***Mark on the bulb holder which side is the LED's + because I think this holder is reversible.***
-solder the resistor onto the wire harness coming from the dash.

 

At 2v, it seems to light up ok. It's about as bright as the Auto, hazard, and defrost so far.

The A/C has the two lights on it, one that indicates that the A/C is on, and the other one is the parking light one. The A/C one dims when the parking lights come on. When the parking lights are on, it's the same brightness as the rest of the lights. When the parking lights are off, it's really bright.

 

I may be able to wiggle it in somewhere on my site, you just have to let me steal the pics.

 

Yeah, sure you can take the pictures, just say they're yours or mine. I don't want to see the pictures pop up on ebay or something as a "blue dash kit". LOL

Ok, back window switch. pretty straight forward.
-take bulb out
-pop switch open
-replace bulb w/ LED/resistor combo
-pop label out and clean off adhesive
-I found that if you wetsand the back of the label VERY CAREFULLY, you can remove the layer of green. Don't try w/ a blade. Just try wetsanding it. I used 600 grit
-close it up and you're done!

 

Bill, how did you wire up the 8 LEDs that light up the a/c panel? and how did you mount them? I'm thinking of taking the plastic piece and drilling holes in it to mount the LEDs in...

 

Ok, the A/C panel. This thing was a B!TCH to take out. I'm sure there's other ways to approach this, but after thinking the drilling the plastic thing, I thought the LEDs might be too close to the back of the panel to light it evenly, so I wanted to take the whole thing out and mount the LEDs directly to it.

*manual A/C controls* (not the new digital ones on the newer 3rd gens)
-there's two screws holding it in on either side. Really easy to see.
-unplug hardness on the back of the the fan-speed switch, and the white plug on the right side (I'm guessing it detects that you have the vents set on defog and turns on the A/C)
-A big clip holds the fan speed switch in on top. lift the clip, and slide the fan speed switch backwards.
-There's four wires that slide in and out of sleeves. There's clips on the A/C assembly that grab collars on the end of the sleeves.
-Spread both clips outwardsm and then pull the sleeve out. (shown in pic) *FYI, this step is the epitome of "easier said than done"* I found the easiest way was to take my swiss army knife pliers, stick them on the inside of the clips, and push into the collar, so that as the pliers go outwards around the collar, they open up the clips.
-unhook wire from the arm of the lever

 

ok, now all that should be left is this pesky plug left that the A/C button plugs into.

I'm not sure exactly how this thing went in, but here's how I think it worked. It slides in from the bottom, as you can see the rails that it slides in on. There's these two pieces of plastic that run parallel to the rails that have the lockin triangle thing on them. You can get to the one on this side, but not the other because it's in a deep tiny hole.

So, to get this one out, I stuck a flathead in next to the side of the plug from underneath, twisted, and then used a whole bunch of brute force to get it out LoL.

Here's the picture of how I think it works. the plug is in yellow, rail and lock in red. *the picture is actually wrong for the plug shape as the plug is longer sideways than it is vertical, but that doesn't matter too much.*

 

Heh you're a brave man, I never removed the whole temp switch assembly. I did take off the fan speed switch and yes I remember it being a pain too. Once I had the fan speed switch out, there's two black wires coming from the bottom side of it. I set up all the lights from those two wires, just wired in parallel, then drilled the holes in the black plastic on either side whre the original light was, then fed them through the back side. Be real careful after you install them and watch the control arms as you move them back and forth, make sure they're not going to get hung up on the wires. I did not reuse the clear plastic piece, it wouldn't have fit with the bulbs sticking out anyways, unless you drill a depression for each bulb, I found it didn't make much difference anyway when I held it up there.

 

I basically did the same thing, except I just wanted to work at my table instead of in the truck How did you you insert all the LEDs though? there's a bunch of crap back there that would get in the way and would make it really tough to do in the truck.

Ok, A/C panel

-first, I dremeled out the two "barriers" inside the lighting area. I figured they would get in the way of the light dispersion. *edit* you can see above in Bill's picture the barriers I'm talking about. One is on the left side to the right of the left-most LED. The other is on the right side above and below the right-most LED.
-then marked and drilled 3/16" holes for the LEDs.
-Flattened the heads of all the LEDs I would be using.
-soldered resistors to all, and then soldered all of them in parallel.

right side

 

-I also wrapped them in regular electrical tape, just in case since there's the moving arms above and below the wires.

right side installed

 

There's a pic of the three leds for the left side, but it looks like the right side, so I didn't post it.

the back, showing the wiring. The wires are sandwiched in electrical tape

 

testing... lookin good!

 

I made a thingy to plug into the bulb socket.


it's a really thin piece of plexi glass with two of the cut off LED legs sunk into it, and then bent 90 degrees out the back. I used the plexi to hold the legs in position so that I could solder the pieces of wire that would be my contacts. I did it the same way I described earlier of making Us with wire and soldering them.

 

And this is everything done!

Now just reassemble!