Easy/Cheap 1967 DIY LED Cluster Backlight
11-20-2011, 07:08 PM
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Easy/Cheap 1967 DIY LED Cluster Backlight
Recently I had to remove my cluster to rewire my ignition and thought that as long as I had my instrument cluster off i would repaint it, one thing led (see what I did there?) to another and i decided to replace my burnt out old bulbs with bright blue LEDs.
Things you will need:
-1967 cluster
-basic pliers
-wire stripper
-electrical tape
-various screwdrivers
-11 simple LED lights, I used the ones with a single LED, they came with wires attached.
-your preferred method of connecting two wires, I just used heat shrink straws.
-patience
I have the picture of how to assemble the LEDs to fit into the existing bulb opening, connecting the proper wires is easy, just connect one to the old wire and the other wire will need to be grounded.
When you remove the old bulbs push the wire through the bulb housing and snip it off so you can pull off the metal housing. inside the housing is a plastice piece and a spring, take you LED and do this:
Next, push the plastic piece to the bottom of the LED:
Next, wrap the spring+plastic is a length of electrical tape, I used about 3-4 inches of it.
Now bring that metal housing and slip it over the whole thing, because of the electrical tape it should be a nice tight fit.
this is going to pop right back in place where it used to be. since i had my cluster out I went ahead and took off the front cover and removed the blue pieces of plastic covering the bulb holes.
You might wonder why the plastic is blue but the lights are green when you turn them on. The original bulbs used gave off a yellow tinted light, this plus the blue plastic made the backlight the green color were familiar with.
some more pictures of the final wiring and repainted cluster:
these are the ground wires.
I painted it matte black, im pleased with how it came out, it was really bad before.
ill get a better picture of the painted cluster tomorrow and hopefully hook it up.
I'll have pictures of the results tomorrow when I hook it up, I'll update this post when I do.
Things you will need:
-1967 cluster
-basic pliers
-wire stripper
-electrical tape
-various screwdrivers
-11 simple LED lights, I used the ones with a single LED, they came with wires attached.
-your preferred method of connecting two wires, I just used heat shrink straws.
-patience
I have the picture of how to assemble the LEDs to fit into the existing bulb opening, connecting the proper wires is easy, just connect one to the old wire and the other wire will need to be grounded.
When you remove the old bulbs push the wire through the bulb housing and snip it off so you can pull off the metal housing. inside the housing is a plastice piece and a spring, take you LED and do this:
Next, push the plastic piece to the bottom of the LED:
Next, wrap the spring+plastic is a length of electrical tape, I used about 3-4 inches of it.
Now bring that metal housing and slip it over the whole thing, because of the electrical tape it should be a nice tight fit.
this is going to pop right back in place where it used to be. since i had my cluster out I went ahead and took off the front cover and removed the blue pieces of plastic covering the bulb holes.
You might wonder why the plastic is blue but the lights are green when you turn them on. The original bulbs used gave off a yellow tinted light, this plus the blue plastic made the backlight the green color were familiar with.
some more pictures of the final wiring and repainted cluster:
these are the ground wires.
I painted it matte black, im pleased with how it came out, it was really bad before.
ill get a better picture of the painted cluster tomorrow and hopefully hook it up.
I'll have pictures of the results tomorrow when I hook it up, I'll update this post when I do.
Last edited by MustangFTW; 11-20-2011 at 07:11 PM.
