Replacing Dashboard Lights

[David Johnson 2]

How do you go about replacing the dashboard lights behind the speedometer? I was driving home last night, and all of a sudden part of my dashboard wasn't lit up. I am guessing that there are a few lights back there and one of them burnt out.

 

[Dre L]

get ready for a lot of screwing.



unscrew 2 bolts at bottom of radio above hvac controls



unscrew 2 from the hood release handle and let handle dangle from cable.



Unscrew 3 more screws from knee bolster trim.



Unscrew 5 large brass colored bolts from knee bolster.



I think there are 2 or 3 more screws for the dash trim above the knee bolster.



remove 3 screws from dash dome (instrument cluster)



you should get a drill with a flex extension, it makes the whole job easier.



remove trim by gently prying it back.



Get it over the steering column by tilting the wheel, and playing with your gearshift while the e-brake is on.



remove 4 screws from the actual instrument cluster. Not the brass ones, just the black ones.



tilt instrument cluster and rotate until you can grip each of the black lamp sockets (there are 6) you can do 3 from one side, then rotate the cluster and do the other 3.



you should have gotten some white LED 12V #194 bulbs from superbrightleds.com so that you don't need to do this so often. They are the WLED5 bulbs which have 4 diagonal firing and 1 straight firing LED (5 leds total in a #194 form factor)



Have fun cursing for 3 hours to replace bulbs (5 minutes)



Installation is the reverse, while cursing backwards.



If you do it right, you'll never need to do it again, but the 2nd and 3rd times you do it, it takes only about 15 minutes to do.



Oh, and if your headlamp switch and 4wd switch don't light up... they're supposed to. I'll only get into that if you're good at rigging things to be fire hazards.



And they look soooo different from the dingy stock lamps.

 

[David Johnson 2]

Thanks Nobleman. I was fearing it would be a tedious job. I may as well put a new dash cluster in while I'm at it. I have been thinking about getting one that has Blue instead of Green for a while, but I figured it would be a pain to install.

 

[Jake Antcliff]

Ok, so I'm guessing that your entire instrument pannel should be lit up? I got my sport trac a little while ago and the 60mph area has never had light, should it?

 

[Travis Munday]

If it has no actual light, then the bulb is bad...but the light may just be dim natrually at 60mph...I've had aftermarket gauges for so long now I can'[t remember.

 

[Dre L]

no, no, it should be pretty bright.



Here's a bad pic of the new LED's I'll get a better one some day.





[Broken External Image]:



It's really not as bad as it sounds.



As for replacing the gauge faces, good luck, I wouldn't even attempt going that far. but I think there was a project for it.

 

[mike carter]

DO these LEDS work? What was that about the headlight and 4wd switch?

 

[Dre L]

Yes, they still work.



The HL and 4x4 switch have a proprietary bulb wired via a pedestal type base that connects to the electrical on the switch. If you're not good at wiring (and this job is a real pain in the ass) I would just buy new switches.



However, you can mod the #73/74 led bulb, solder on long thin wires, and solder to the base. If I had to do it again, I would just buy a new switch.

 

[mike carter]

Thanks nobleman I have the leds on order to replace the dashboard lights . I just cant understand why ford wouldn't use the leds to start with :blink:

 

[mike carter]

I just went back to the standard #194 bulb because I was experiencing a flicker of lights like that of fluorescent bulbs that are going out. After many e-mails to superbrightleds.com they wanted me to send the bad ones back but ,I really didnt want to take the dash apart that many times or leave the dash apart while they changed them out (they were fairly slow shipping the first time) therefore standard #194 it is.