Changing cluster lights on eg

Disclaimer: The following is provided as a GUIDE ONLY, and neither myself nor Ozhonda take any responsibility for the outcomes of someone else doing the following. You follow these steps at your own risk!


Aim: Change cluster lights on eg (works with most cars)

Required: 6 cluster LEDs, philips head screw driver, 45 minutes of free time.

Steps:
1. Go purchase some LEDs, you can find the ones for clusters all over the internet, or you can grab the ones like I have below for $15 a pack of 5 from autobahn (I got mine from their Bankstown store). Don't go tightass you WILL need 6 so yes, another pack for a single LED. Or expect a shitty looking job.

http://img2.pict.com/40/06/38/185532...043640x480.jpg

I got red, because it makes my car go faster.

(For those who cannot read Japanese, the packaging says buy these or we will rape you, note the exclamation mark too, they are serious guys...)


2. Take of the fascia surrounding your centre cluster, for those of you who dont know how, its two screws above the cluster and one behind the hazards that you have to pry off with a flat head. Then use those manly arms to pull off that fascia (Don't forget to unplug that clock and hazard switch!), the clips hold on a little tight so be prepared to swear at the plastic a little, some nice suggestions are "Your ****ing little plastic shit, and Hitler must have designed this shit...what an asshole!"

And then you should have something that looks sort of like this;

http://img2.pict.com/b2/bc/62/185535...045640x480.jpg

If you don't, then you may be you should get out of that persons car and back into your eg and drive far off and start @ step 2 again.

3. Im not going to put a picture for this step, you need to remove those 4 surrounding screws on the fascia and pull out the whole cluster, expect to swear a little more cause thing is hard to get out too! Once cluster is removed unplug wiring from behind.

4. Considering someone has not ****ed about with your cluster behind there should be these what I shall now refer to as "twisty tops". Some are black and some a brown, we are going to pay attention to the brown ones. Those are the ones we want to change, they come of with a slight counter clock wise twist. UNSCREW ONLY ONE FOR NOW!

http://img2.pict.com/8e/60/b7/185535...046640x480.jpg

Behold the giant thumb of doom!

5. You should have something like this ;

http://img2.pict.com/5b/d8/96/185536...047640x480.jpg

See that blue bulb, lift it right up! Not too hard you DO NOT want to BREAK IT, or enjoy the bleeding and troubles of getting the base of it out. And then you should have this ;

http://img2.pict.com/32/2a/22/185536...048640x480.jpg

Note the small cut on my index finger, guess what I did...

6. Replace with the new LED and it should look like this

http://img2.pict.com/53/30/8c/185537...049640x480.jpg

7. Place the LED back and test it (yes temporary rewiring) and if it lights up red your sweet, if not you have the polarity (+/-) the wrong way, so take out that LED and switch it around. See why you should have done them one at a time, if you didn't I hope you enjoy the giant mind **** you just created to get the job done quicker. Its a living hell now to find out which ones work and which do not.

8.Place everything back and put fascia and buttons/clock back on. Then admire your work for 10 odd minutes.

http://img2.pict.com/22/00/d6/185537...051640x480.jpg
Taken with camera phone (looks alot better in RL)

9. Come to my place, sand down my car then respray.

Other comments

I know its been done here before by ICYOIL, but that was with painting the leds. This is replacing them for coloured ones altogether.

If you have an auto like mine, the white cluster can be unscrewed and lifted right out to get to the other 2 twisty tops.

What if it's manual?

Looks good, :) since my DIY ive put leds in too
and there is really no difference to a manual, they are still the brown twisty tops across the back of the cluster

Ta. Might give this a shot when I have some spare time. Anybody know if it's the same in the EF8 CRX SiR?

Good Work!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dougie_504

Ta. Might give this a shot when I have some spare time. Anybody know if it's the same in the EF8 CRX SiR?

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It may look a little different and might not be colour coded (brown and black tops) but nevertheless they are the same, hell same basic manner even for 2 of my ford falcons. There are only two types of leds that go behind there, and most of the are the small ones, the larger ones very few cars use but autobahn does stock it.

So yes, it almost the same.

nice diy, thanks for putting this up man, i appreciate it, i want to buy an eg soon, and i will be doing this, just gotta sell my integra :(... but thanks bro!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by newpaddy

nice diy, thanks for putting this up man, i appreciate it, i want to buy an eg soon, and i will be doing this, just gotta sell my integra :(... but thanks bro!!

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Not a problem mate. Hope to see you rollin' in the eg soon!

Anyone had troubles where some of the LED's would go on and off randomly during driving.
Mine do that, and obviously they are around the right way because they do light up, but sometimes turn off...
Im thinking the film that carries the electronic circuit on the back of the cluster may be stuffed? I dno if anyone can help would be great
thx

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chriskoss

Anyone had troubles where some of the LED's would go on and off randomly during driving.
Mine do that, and obviously they are around the right way because they do light up, but sometimes turn off...
Im thinking the film that carries the electronic circuit on the back of the cluster may be stuffed? I dno if anyone can help would be great
thx

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Could the wiring be loose? I had abit of a problem with corrosion on the back of mine where the dimmer was so also check that!

Good luck and let me know what happens.

Oh, was it happening before you changed LEDs?

I found that LEDs create light and dark spots on the cluster. Replacing the stock globe with a coloured one should give a more even result. You can also put caps on the stock globes but those tend to fade after a while

Quote:

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Originally Posted by simbadda54

I found that LEDs create light and dark spots on the cluster. Replacing the stock globe with a coloured one should give a more even result. You can also put caps on the stock globes but those tend to fade after a while

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I originally agreed with you there, until I got some nicer LEDs (not these ones) for my ford. They are like 3 leds in one and they light up EXTREMELY bright.

But for the little EG cluster the dark spots are hard to note in darkness.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vodkashot

Could the wiring be loose? I had abit of a problem with corrosion on the back of mine where the dimmer was so also check that!

Good luck and let me know what happens.

Oh, was it happening before you changed LEDs?

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Nah wirings not loose, and no wasnt happening before I changed the LED's

Could have something to do with the LED's not fitting quiet right into the globe holders, the stock bulbs my da9 came with, the base is much larger than the t10 LED's that are said to be the correct ones to use for clusters, so who knows, might just put old globes back in, cause sometimes when the lights turn off I cant see what speed im going :eek: haha

did this @ the beginning of the year, isnt a hard diy. i found 'tri-led' or butterfly leds gave off better illuminiation. the light was spread better and hotspots not as bad.

leds such as these: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/6-X-3-LED-Blu...item4149f1fe7b

the picture doesnt do it justice :P (6 leds are in, 5 worked, 1 WAS a dud (near the 'H' of the temperature, its been replaced with a working led now))

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/7197/clustery.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chriskoss

Nah wirings not loose, and no wasnt happening before I changed the LED's

Could have something to do with the LED's not fitting quiet right into the globe holders, the stock bulbs my da9 came with, the base is much larger than the t10 LED's that are said to be the correct ones to use for clusters, so who knows, might just put old globes back in, cause sometimes when the lights turn off I cant see what speed im going :eek: haha

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If the LED's are not fitting right, then try the larger size ones. There seems to be only 2 sizes on the market so yours could be the larger ones.

In the mean time, dw about what speed you are going. There are only two speeds you should know;

1. The speed everyone else is driving
2. Really fast.

Hahah thanks for the info vodkashot.

I think ill only be in trouble when Im zooming past a cop car or something and they look at my funny lol

P.S What are the 2 sizes, t10 and t5?

Oh and the ones I got now which I think are t5's do fit, but just a tad wobbly if that makes sense. T10's wont fit they are too big, my dash does take 2 x t10's though(same size as the parker bulbs), luckily I had 2 left over in blue so I put them in, and they work, but theres also t5's around the dash, its a stupid design

I had the same problem with some of the cheap ebay leds. The wedge is 5mm but it lacks thickness to make a snug fit - I had to bend the metal legs out a little to make it fit better.

Other branded leds like the 3A racing at autobarn have perfect snug fitment.

Thanks for that ill give them a try then

Be wary of generic ebay led

The resistors in mine got fried - brown area of the plastic.
This caused the plastic base to melt.

Sorry about the bad pic - phone camera can't focus well in macro.
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/1610/dsc00470cx.jpg

so its better to go with the good quality ones from supercheap or something? thing is they prob source it from the same makers in china and then add a 200% mark up lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chriskoss

so its better to go with the good quality ones from supercheap or something? thing is they prob source it from the same makers in china and then add a 200% mark up lol

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They might, but atleast you know they wont sell shitty ones that blow up, they have a rep to hold up.

COol , But is that the bulb will last long, cause it might fuse off easier compare with original

this is awesome im going to try this , though then ill have to change the other lights such as a/c no? anyone had a DIY for this?

haha, i was just about to tell you that i did one with it, then i realized that you found it. lol