I never could find any howto for this, so I decided to just tackle it on my own, document it, and post a howto for it. In doing this and then writing about it, I realize I took some extra steps by cutting some things and whatnot that you might see in some pictures. I'm posting the easy, no cut, way. This whole thing shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how careful you are and is not hard at all on soldering skill. Here y'all go:

1) Using a phillips screwdriver, take off the knee panel under the steering wheel. There are two screws holding it on, one on each side of the bottom. Undo those, then pull the clips out at the top.

2) Remove the knee panel support bar underneath. It is held on by two 10mm bolts. If you are into weight reduction, you can just leave this part off permanently...I did.

3) Remove the housing around the steering wheel. There are six phillips screws that you access from holes underneath with a long screwdriver. Be careful not to lose anything or mix up parts here. Once those screws are out, the housing snaps off into three pieces. The lower piece is kinda attached to the steering column...just pull it down and off.

3) The clear piece surrounding the keyhole and the white housing behind that can now come off the key switch with a little twisting and pulling.

4) Pull the bulb out of the white housing and then out of its socket. Now you'll have a bunch of parts that look like this, except the wires will still be attached to your car:


5) Now go inside and solder a resistor to a 5mm LED of your color choice and bend the wires so that it looks like this:


6) You have just made a replacement bulb. Stick this in the bulb socket out in the car. If it doesn't light up, it means you got the polarity wrong... just take the thing out and stick it in the other way and it should light up. It'll look like this:


7) Now put this back in the white housing:


8) Twist the housing back onto the key switch the same way it came off. Now put all the panels around the steering column back on the same way they came off and then the knee panel back on the way it came off.

9) You should now be done. Hopefully, it will look like this and you will feel all warm and fuzzy inside:

 

sweeet, thanks alot ive been wanting to do this really badly myself.

some mod should sticky this

 

I used an led holder from radio shack for mine

 

Nice - this will be my next mod.

 

nice. if it stops snowing/sleeting. i'm gonna be doing the ignition switch and hopefully the Bose. still gotta buy a multimeter.

 

Please, please let me know if/when and how you do the BOSE. I want those damn dirty green LEDs OUT! Seriously, if you decide to take this on, PM me, e-mail me, AIM me, just contact me.

EDIT: This goes for the rest of you!

 

i'll probably be doing it friday during the day. also doing a neon in the trunk, and the keyring, ashtray, glovebox, and fogs, so i dunno. the bose is laston my list. I see u did all the window switches, cruise, dimmer switch, etc. you shouldn't have any trouble doing the bose hu. all i did so far were my hazards [which is slowly dying out], defrost, and climate. i'm only doing the bose because one went out the day AFTER i finished my climate control. enough bltching, i'll try to do a writeup. but i have a ****ty camera. youll be the first to know.

 

Good luck with those - be sure to post some pics for us.

Well I took apart my entire dash, and as I inspected the BOSE headunit itself, I didn't really see any way to get into the housing itself, and I didn't want to start prying **** apart.

I appreciate that :

 

nice, i forgot to do that, will be doin it later today

 

nice, i forgot to do that, will be doin it later today

 

ha wow cool thats the same way i did mine.... just made an led that i could stick in i guess its that old saying great minds think alike lol

 

Wow cool mod, I was wondering how to do that. I'm doing that today, if not today tomorrow.

 

If you live close enough I have friday off too i can go over with my cam to help create the whole pic tutorial. PM me or EMail me.

 

infact, i tried this mod many times but ended up w/ a blown LED.
i tried it with the wires stripped and hooking up the leds to the wires, both ways.

 

that'd be cool but i'm currently at school in central jersey. i probably would mess up if someone else is there with me haha. im the lone solderer. plus i break things on the way and ghetto rig EVERYTHING

 

u either did not use a resistor or the two ends of the LED leads were touching and causing a short. anyway, glad to see your car starts fine now

 

I hear ya bro. I live in Newark and it SUCKS!!! i cant even enjoy my new AGX/Eibach setup !!!

 

of course i used resistors but yeh, maybe the leads were touching together.

 

YO! I just tried this mod and of course something went wrong. I think I blew a fuse. I made the LED/resistor shoved it into the plug and my dome lights flickered. The prongs of the LED touched each other. Now the stock bulb doesn't work. I don't know which fuse it is. Someone help me.

 

Should've used electrical tape.

 

DAYYYUM N**** Don't be so harsh, no room for electrical tape on the piece.

 

I have no clue what fuse it is either, but most likely it's located in the fuse box to the left of the steering wheel. The only thing I can suggest is to take them out one by one and see which one of them is blown. You should have a few spare fuses in there.

 

Yea, I was looking in there. Looking at the list, but couldn't find it. I'll take them out one-by-one. But what if I don't find a blown fuse? UT OH

 

All my fuses look good. I want to ge this LED Mod done! I don't know what to do.

 

I'm sorry :me cry: I don't know what else to think of. Just for ***** and giggles, did you try checking the fuse box(es) under the hood?

 

I'm glad your staying with me here.

Give me a second...

 

Get on AIM.

 

so anyone in central nj who wants to do my gauges? I don't have a dremel and since i have a 99, i have the #74 bulbs and not the 194, so ihave to drill it out. I'll do any other led work i am capable of doing for you.

for the 99er's who did this mod, what's the board like? Would it be safe to say i can use a big drill bit to drill through it? thanks

cant wait til tomorrow, fogs, bose, and trunk neon may the weather be nice

 

u don't have to drill to get 194's to fit in your 98-99 cluster just insert the ends from underneath. I just did another guy's cluster yesterday and it looks pretty sweet. no drillin needed

 

i was VERY tempted to IM you to see if you had time to do this. I remember you gave me a very detailed writeup, i'm just scared to do it because you said I might melt something if i don't do it right. i still don't understand the 'insert the ends from underneath.' I will bend the metal leads off the bulb all the way and insert just the metal connectors through the front and bend them back to touch onto the back of the board? and one more thing i forgot to ask. does polarity count here? How could I go about testing the gauges as I go along?

 

My key ring still doesn't light up anymore.

I have .12 Volts comming out of the plug. And the stock bulb doesn't work.

 

sorry to hear. i'm gonna be doing this myself in about 30 minutes. i'll try n see what could go wrong.

 

Cool, let me know what happens.

 

Dang, still waitin for my LEDs to come in. Then this will go on the list of LED swapping. Looks nice mine good write up. SOMEONE put this in the HOW TO's STICKY

 

Black max, I think you may have melted a wire ging to or coming from. Have you checked to make sure it's grounded and the ground is good. Check the hot wire to a known good ground. I think you should have 12 volts not .12 like you said. Just a thought that might help. If you have good voltage, make sure you have very little resistance going to a ground.

 

Thanks for the reply. It is hard to tell exactly where the wires go from the bulb. There are like 20 wires taped together. I will unwrap them and see where the key ring wires go to and what type of shape they are in. I don't know how I could check the hot wires to a known good ground. Yeah, and I know I don't have 12 volts.

 

hey. I just got done with it and I could see where you could have shorted something out. The space inside the socket is tight and the legs of the led flimsy. What I did was wrap half the led legs with electric tape. Then I didn't put it in like a normal bulb would slide in, I slipped it in between the flat rectangular copper contact and the plastic housing of the socket. There it will still get current and the leads will be nowhere near each other. I'm sorry you had problems, but I learned the hard way too. always wrap the led leads and don't ever allow them to touch at any given point. Good luck.

it got too dark so bose will have to be tomorrow.

 

haha i did mine today. i actually didn't use the stupid socket cause it was getting on my nerves. i just hot glued the ledw/ resistor in the socket insertment area and wired the led to the ignintion light wires.

came out very bright and i am pleased.

 

That's what I'm going to do when I figure out what going on.

 

dam sounds easy maybe i should give it a try.