My AC Controls Light Mod - How To

dang that sucks! i did mine yesterday and dug into it by accident once but not terrible. I used blue uline packaging tape for the back

 

Yep, that's by far the worst step. Its so tedious that if I were to do it again I would break it up into more than one session, just because I tend to start rushing after a while. Take off some, take an hour or so break, then finish up.

Glad to hear you found a source for a new one, thank goodness for totaled trucks.

I'll have to look for that tape Fighter, Im still not quite happy with mine. Any pics?

 

i kinda have one pic. ill post another one up later

 

heres the other pic

 

That looks good. The clock looks clearer than mine.

 

more dash light mods any????

 

I am pretty satisfied with them now that they are all blue or red. The only things I may do in the future are swapping out the map and dome lights for some better LEDs.

 

how hard was the gauges to you???

 

Hello, I really appreciate your posting. I am changing out the orange LEDs for super bright white ones. I have two questions. First, where I bought my 3mm superbrite leds I was told I have to solder an inline resitor for each led on the longer side of the led. I did not see that you had to do this. Second question, I have taken apart my a/c control assembly and while I was studying the pc board, a short fat spring fell out. Do you remember where this goes? I am fairly sure it goes on the far left end of the 3 ac adjustors, but where? I went to my local dealership, but they only had a picture of the assembly together and were no help. So any suggestions would help. Thank you, sweet pea

 

I did not add any resistors, I just swapped out the stock, amber leds with the new, blue ones. I'm pretty sure that you would only need a resistor if you were replacing a non-led bulb with an led.

The only spring I remember is for the detent ball in the left-hand knob.


For additional pics check out the other thread -
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/lighting/106324-ac-controls-disassembly-pics.html

Good luck.

 

Working on this mod today - and discovered that you can remove the amber/orange paint from the inside of the AC/Recirculate buttons using a Q-tip and fingernail polish remover (acetate) it comes of VERY easy, no mess and no danger of ruining your buttons.

Generic 5mm 3v LEDs from radioshack work

Just need to swap the bulbs for blue LEDs and figure out how to clear that amber from the bezels...

Thanks for the help on taking it apart and putting back together - SUPER HELP!

 

so does fingernail polish not work to remove the amber color from the clock? just the recirculate and ac buttons?

 

I tried acetone before breaking out the Dremel, it didn't do anything. Would be so much nicer if that was all you needed.

 

Awesome write up! I hate my amber gauges and was back and forth as to what color to do everything else because I didn't want blue gauges, clock, and radio with amber AC. I will have to start my blue led mod soon!

 

subbed

 

So you can only do this with the AC and recirculate buttons? That would make things a lot easier if you could do this all the way around, and with the clock as well.

 

For the clock you only have to replace the 3 LEDs behind the screen in the 10 and up year models. Your numbers on the clock should appear larger than the pictures in this thread because it is a different clock set up between the pre-10s and the 10-11 year models.