Gen7 Instrument Cluster Innards

In these images you can see the white light from my flashlight shining through all of the idiot light icons. They're all white! So that just means that instead of a special film like in the days of regular bulbs, the LEDs themselves are what produce the colors needed.

So that means that all of the ones for the numbers and needles can be exchanged at my preference, which is red.

Also notice that I wrote on the IP board to identify all of the LEDs so I don't take out the wrong ones.

Look at what the nice folks at Mouser sent me last night!

I did it! This morning I started the process of swapping the white LED illumination in the IP to red using SMD LEDs that I got from Mouser Electronics. I bought 50 and still have 17 left. I messed up 5 in the process but at about 30¢ each that was a cheap lesson.

** SMD = Surface-Mounted Device.


1. Last weekend I disassembled the dash to get the IP out to find out what parts to order. The lesson I learned when putting back together temporarily was that the tach and speedo needles need to be powered and then you can adjust them to a true zero. You can see the speed indicates about 2-3 mph but I was sitting still. The tach had a similar error.

2. My temperature-controlled soldering iron, hands-free magnifier, and my target: the "km/h" LED. Since I'm in the US where we use mph I figured messing up the metric indicator would be a small loss if I couldn't get it to work.

3. De-soldered 1 side to reveal 2 pads remaining on the other. The parts I got were PLCC-2 and the stock LEDs are PLCC-4. The only difference is that the stock ones have 4 individual legs and the new ones have only 2. More on that later . . .

4. Success! Notice the "km/h" is red, although it looks like a washed-out orangy color here, but trust me, it's definitely red! The tape over the holes keeps the needle illumination from blowing out the picture.

5. Tach illumination modified: 6 for the numbers, 2 for the needle, 1 for the title "RPM x 1000".

6. Speedo LEDs removed and 3 of the 4 pads for each are prepped with a ball of solder, 4th pad cleared of any raised solder so the LED doesn't short out. Notice the size of the SMD! Before removing any of the SMDs I carefully marked the cathode by observing the triangular corner cut on each one. 3 of the terminals on each PLCC-4 are cathodes and the 4th is the anode. When installing a PLCC-2 device it is necessary to solder the cathode on the SMD to the cathode pads on one side and then solder only the anode pad to the other side. Otherwise you end up with a direct short-circuit that keeps them from turning on. (Thankfully, even after getting all of the tachometer LEDs soldered, testing them in the car, and then noticing that they weren't on, I removed each one and prepped the pads as above and only damaged 5 in the process. After that they all lit up and no burnt ICs!)

7. A picture of the detail of the IP bezel as it had to be installed, but also notice the "true red" of the numbers that you can see. THIS is the real color!

8. Speedo, fuel, and coolant gauges completed and dash reassembled. (This image has been adjusted to try to show the actual redness of the illumination, but it isn't like #7. I should go out and use a real camera instead of my phone, eh?)

Took a few pics with my Nikon P510 and chose this one as a sample of what it looks like at night, with only parking lights to keep headlights from washing it out, and dimmer turned to its brightest setting.

I'm gonna love driving at night again!