Who has done aftermarket dash and cluster lights?

I found that most Neo LED bulbs have plastic case of questionable finish quality (not only Neo, T-nn too). The tolerances are off the scale, molding marks are rough and extensive. Unfortunately. But with a little fine touch with sharp knife, sandpaper and pliers (to squeeze wires into contact slots) they are repairable.

 

Absolutely right!

Please use caution when inserting these bulbs into the board . Do not touch the board with the pliers. Do not try to press the bulbs into the board with the pliers , you could easily end up damaging the board...Be gentle and use care

 

I suggest partially covering the bulb used for indicating the highbeams are on. Mine is so obnoxiously bright that I find myself just not using highbeams at all. Not sure what the best method is for dimming that bulb because it is not controlled by the dimmer dial.

 

I'd use cheaper (dimmer) bulb. If not available, make the bulb dimmer ghetto way (cover with masking tape or just paint the led over). More elegant solution (and more tedious work) would be replace the resistor inside the bulb with higher value one (it it is a cheap resistor type bulb). What is that bulb size (I did not change mine)?

 

My issue was the diode casing would not fit through the OEM board. After reading and posting last night, it dawned on me that I could probably remove the diode from the case it was in and transfer to the OEM case. I was able to remove the diode from the fitting they came with and inserted into the OEM case. Perfect fit. Then I “sanded” the diode edges to fit through the OEM temperature control board hole. Reassembled and they work great. This was my first real mod for this truck. I think I am addicted now.

 

Welp I'm an idiot and ordered NEO3 instead of NEO4 when I tore the dash apart again to fix my one flicker LED.

But that didn't stop me. Grabbed the bulb holding wedge and was able to get the LED into it.

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Also installed a 4runner AC control panel so that my AC and Recirc glow green instead of orange now:

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

That combined with new knobs really updates the look, and fixes my OCD because I had orange ac/recirc buttons but blue everything else. Now at least the LED's on my CB and these buttons match.

I've got a spare 4runner cover and knobs for sale if anyone was looking for one now, PM me if interested.

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr
Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Also since I had a space AC control panel to play with that I was likely going to throw away (potentiometer is fucked and won't mix hot/cold and I tried the whole turn it back and forth a bunch of times trick) I decided to see what it would take to swap the led's behind the ac/buttons if someone REALLY wanted to.

So here's a little guide on how to get in there:

First pop off the front button covers, I used a dental pick to do this:

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Then undo the 4 screws on the back of the board (obvs open up the panel, you would need to do this for a normal led swap anyway).

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Now you can carefully pull the board out. The rest of the button body slides in and out of the white part of the panel. From there you are left with something like this:

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

Now you gotta carefully undo the black clips and press the whole black thing out:

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

The clips are easy but the post is delicate, I broke one of them:

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

I put the black clip black on and it still holds well though.

From there it's just a matter of soldering on a new LED:

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

The biggest difficulty is the awkward shape of the LED. I found these that MIGHT work.

$9 200pcs 2x5x7mm Led Rectangle Rectangular led Light Diffused Mix Color

https://www.amazon.com/200pcs-2x5x7mm-Rectangle-Rectangular-Diffused/dp/B013Y4D1FE

The weird part is that even though the button bodies have an orange tint to them the actual buttons themselves are clear and not tinted.

So replacing that LED should work for a color change. Of course this is only for someone who wants White, purple, or blue as it's much easier to get a 4runner hvac control for green, but I guess this route is much much cheaper potentially.

 

I just replaced my ugly orange light in the speedo cluster and the bulbs in the hvac unit with LED.Took 90 minutes. I am happy with the results. This forum rocks!!!!

 

DONE!!!

 

Appreciate the tip.


I've got a couple dead 194 bulbs and I figure I might as well do everything while I'm there. I've run through all 37 pages and it's 99% reiterating 194 LEDs, and neo wedge T4s. Anyone know what the bulb size is for the 19 other lights in the instrument cluster? I assume they're not also 194 since they're smaller. And according to 4DIYer's YTvideo, it looks like there are 3 special grey ones?

 

How do I get lights that are CLEAN and BLUE like this?

 

Do like he did and order from super bright LED's.

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

 

I need to figure out what HVAC light to order, and how to paint my needles white

 

NEO4's for the HVAC, but that wont help you without the 4runner faceplate. You will have bad hot spots otherwise. I wouldn't recommend your needles being white with a white background. (His needles aren't white btw if that is what you are basing your wishes on)

Some tips on painting the needles:

Cynicalriders "J0hnny5 is ALIVE!" 01 build thread.

 

I'm stuck with the amber HVAC lights unless I swap to a 4runner faceplate? What's the part #

 

It will look like this until you do a 4runner faceplate:



More details here:

Cynicalriders "J0hnny5 is ALIVE!" 01 build thread.

 

Why be locked into any 1 specific color when you can choose em all!

 

Can someone clarify what I need to turn my AC lights blue? Just a 4runner faceplate? I have a 2002 Tacoma and my faceplate looks identical to the one below. Any way I can run blue lights without having the 4runner light rings on the faceplate?

 

what bulbs are you running and where?

 

I am on super bright leds right now but how do i know if i am getting the right bulbs? Which ones did you get?