Varmitdan

Great job Jim. I've got 3 - 91's and the speedo is irratic in all 3. You'll be sitting at a light and it will register 70MPH or at 30 its shooting all over the place. Do you think that any part of your repair would solve any of these issues? As these are crew trucks I dont think that I need LED's. I want them; but I dont need them.

Jim Lane

Thank You

It is a honor.
Jim

Jim Lane

I am not to sure about your problem but on mine the Fuel, Battery and Temperature Gauges would wander back and forth for awhile and then they would work OK for awhile, the only thing I could think that they had in common were the ground connections or the bad connections where the terminals were pressed into the circuit board and then staked to hold them in place.

About 6 months ago I also had a problem that the panel lights would flicker so I pulled the cluster and I found one of the pins was loose on the board, at that time I only soldered the one pin because I knew I wanted to make this a project to show everyone.

I think soldering all of the connections like I did and adding a supplemental Ground wire will take care any problem on this end, the only other problem be would be at the connection of the sender of the Signal or Ground.

Maybe someone else will have some knowledge of another fix.


Also even if you don’t install LED’s, applying the foil tape reflector to the inside of the housing will make a dramatic increase in brightness, I tried it with the #194’s also and it was bright.

Jim

fanbrain

I noticed a huge increase in brightness and gauge legibility after I did my gauge cluster. I think it would be too bright for me with the HVAC tape though.

Out of curiosity, did you use my write-up as a reference at any point?

I would like to change the lights in my gauges, but they are LED from the factory.

Jim Lane

I noticed a huge increase in brightness and gauge legibility after I did my gauge cluster. I think it would be too bright for me with the HVAC tape though.

Besides increasing the output of the LED's it also helps to distribute it evenly around the faceplates, I had parts if the gauges that were darker than the other and since I live in a brightly lit city most of the time it was almost impossible to see the dial.

Did you leave the green filters or did you remove them? By filtering the cool white through the green filter it gave me the Blue/ Green color I was looking for.

Out of curiosity, did you use my write-up as a reference at any point?

No I have been working on this idea for some time now ever since I bought the truck but my vision is getting worse and it takes awhile to adjust between the bright lights and the dark interior of the cab so I had to do something real soon.

I had purchased some Infra-Red LED’s and some Luxeon's from this company about 6 months ago for another project and I had seen them then and after a few phone conversations with them that is when I chose them so I ordered everything back in I think it was the end of January.

It was easy to spend $100.00 there.

There are a few Stereo and Tire shops around here that sell all of the Bling for the Escalades where I was gathering information and they wanted up to $25.00 for each piece.

I had gone through several different ideas of how to achieve my goal what I really was looking for was a supplier for Iidiglo electro luminescent sheets that I could print a custom dial face overlay so the light would shine through the numerals and the power would come from an inverter tucked away behind the dash.

And the other way was to install Ultraviolet LED’s above the dash bezel and have them pointing into the gauges, after repainting all of the numerals and pointers with UV reactive paint the dash would glow like an old 60’s Backlight poster.

Part of the reason I chose the cool white LED’s is their wavelength that is closer to the VU region because the pointers by themselves will react to the light and glow brightly.

I would like to change the lights in my gauges, but they are LED from the factory.

What kind of gauges are they, can't you remove the lamps from the housings?

Jim

firstgenjunkie

This is the easiest to follow VFAQ I've seen. I did this to my truck and it's amazing how much clearer it is. Now the instrument panel matches my gauges.

91W350CTD

Where did you get that courtesy light? Also, how bright are the turn signal, hi beam, and other idiot lights? And, can you dim the LED's by from the dash switch like you can the factory incandescent?

Jim Lane

I bought the LED array from Pep Boys and I think it was around $20.00 it was where all of the pimp your ricer parts are and then I mounted it onto a 1/4" scrap of acrylic, the switch is a SPDT and it connected the same as the factory light was so it will automatically come on with the courtesy lights of you can turn it on manually.

I had the LED's for awhile but If I were to have to buy them for my courtsey light I would get them from Superbrightleds.com

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...R#1156-PCB-W24

The Turn Signal, High Beam, Oil and the rest of the Idiot lights are also LED's and they pretty bright and yes I can dim all of the cluster lights from full On down to Off.

Jim

oilcan64

hi jim

great post...when i go to do this hopefully i will pickup a speedo in mph and change mine over! currently its in kilometers b/c my truck is originally from canada

one quick question- the little light on the dash above the climate control & cummins plaque thing- that looks custom made and pretty cool looking! do you have any plans on how to make that? i think its cool especially since i accidentally broke the 2 screw mounts on my original light

thank you

Justin

91W350CTD

Here's an interesting problem, when I put LED's in the 2 inner lights, bottom left, and top right don't light up. No matter what way I turn the lights they don't work. But when I put incandescents in, all 6 work fine? And, the LED's are barely dimmable. The will get a little darker (barely enough to notice) and then they go off.

Jim Lane

That is an interesting one; looking at the circuit board we see that they are all connected in parallel.



What sockets are you using, there are 2 different sizes and some are keyed differently from different manufacture vehicles.

Did you try and swap out the LED’s from a different hole on the circuit board, maybe it is defective.

The dimmer will not be linear throughout its full range but only from about midpoint to the off position.

Jim

Jungle

Jim Great job on the LEDs!!!
What did you for your gage pod that sits on the dash??

Jim Lane

The gauge pod was covered in Part-4 of the article.

This is with the #194 incandescent lamps that come with the gauge.



This is also what the #194 lamp did to the plastic housing to the gauge, I have always used Stewart Warner gauges and have never melted any steel or brass cases in all of the years I have had them.



I used the same LED that I had installed in the instrument cluster.



Now it is much easier to see at night and the gauge does not get burning hot from the heat of the lamp. My gauge lights come on with the ignition and are not on the dimmer circuit.



Here is a link back to the beginning of the article.

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...s-t209884.html

Jim

91W350CTD

They're from a '95 F250. They all twist in and work just fine. There was a tab I had to cut off of them that was keeping them from twisting, but after I cut that off they all work fine now.

Yeah, when I swapped them around it didn't matter what bulb was in what hole, it was just those 2 holes that worked. The other 4 didn't.

blackfordd

Fabulous post and outstanding results. Thanks Jim.