Deff. a to do mod when I get my Max. These remind me so much of the Jetta I had. I loved those gauges. I can't believe from the video how much of a difference it made.

Im still messing around with the interior lights. Heres what i got so far



So as you can see pretty much everything is a different color and brightness

I might buy some cool whites for my guages (unless anyone wants to trade their cool whites for the warm whites i have now) and i used some of the same pink PVC that Rochester used on his clock for my BOSE, clock and ACC, as you can see it turns displays slightly blueish. At first i thought it was hard to see in direct sunlight but its not THAT bad to have to remove it.
I have the NEO4-WHP drop ins for the ACC buttons, i was thinking of using an led strip i have laying around for evenly lighting the buttons but i realized i was no LED guru to be attempting that

Heres a cool white HP3 i have in the shifter. The hotspot is white and then it uses more blue filters at the ends to try to make the stock halogen light appear even, making LED light appear more uneven



And then theres the window switches with their stock "lights"

I tried my best to make the camera take pictures as close to real life colors as possible

Ok i have tried multiple times to remove that light gray covering to get to the bulb that illuminates the gear selection but have been unsuccessful each time. How did you go about this?

got my warm white and installed today...3 of them are very good.. the other one, I dont know whats the problem...it just wont light up, I tried flip the led, I tried put the original bulb in , still no luck. I think the wedge is broken...but I dont know where I screwed up...Where can I get the wedges? what is the size? my car is 03 maxima se.
thanks..

Unscrew the gear selector and put it in N. Then once you have the ash tray trim off there should be visible clips to push in and pull off. Don't worry about that long silver piece reaching downward. That always bends enough for me. Careful on the passenger side there's a wire harness that is clipped to it. You will have to push that off. I completely removed mine to clean it but the light is in the blak box directly below the letters.

I know what I just said wasn't exactly the most precise instructions but my best advice is just keep pulling on it and release anything that is keeping it down. The letters are on a separate plate that isn't very secure so careful not to lose those.


Further back in the thread there is a link and pictures to exactly the part you need

Do you mean the screw behind the coin holder?

Interesting same sort of thing happened to me, one of my LEDs would blink randomly so I ended up calling SBLEDs and they sent me a replacement. New one works fine so yours might just be a defect.

Pop the plastic that's under the leather gearshift downward and then get a good grip on the selector and unscrew the leather ****. You can't pull the silver plate off unless you remove the ****. Your ashtray trim should already be off

Ok cool. I saw that you were having a problem with hotspots with the gear illumination. Is it possible to put an led strip bellow there with a 168 socket?

An led strip would be perfect. I'm just too lazy to go change it. In a 5.5 it's not a 168 base but it is a 74 base just like the gauges. You could remove the power wired from the base and power a strip with it.

So would this

http://www.v-leds.com/strip-lights/a...r-reviews.html

And

http://www.v-leds.com/strip-lights/w...ed-6-inch.html

Be a good combination?

I wanted to put LEDs in my HVAC but the single bulbs had unbearable hotspots. Wouldn't the same idea be good for this application?

It would be a good idea to use a strip. It would be a better idea to have it powered externally so you dont risk your AC controls. I thought of using a strip for the buttons but my strip was a different color than the white HPLED that i think would be needed for the fan selector. (an LED strip wouldnt fit all the way across between the buttons)

This is the inside of the automatic AC controls



I think you might need all three lights installed to allow them to light up but you can see from the picture an led strip WILL fit nicely in place of the left 2 lights.

Heres a thought, Looking at the board now, you could maybe shave down an LED strip to squeeze by the buttons or probably run two separate LED strips from both the left and the right sides of the board and then wire them into that little T5 light that shines downward onto the ashtray area.

actually I have two more those LEDs, and I tried them.. still not lit up...Never mind, just ordered a new base.. Thanks though~

The led strips on V-LEDS are flexible so wouldn't it not be a problem? I was thinking to put a 6 inch trip for the bottom controls then just add a single bulb for the temp control.

Can you post the information about what base you ordered and where you ordered it from, if other than SuperBrightLEDs that is. That way when someone asks next time we'll know.

I need to redo that too though, I have sweet azz SMD's in now, so damn small you can hardly see them at all, but they're about 4 times brighter than the ones shown, and the light shines 180*
This thread is getting OT methinks, too much customization talk for a 'drop-in' thread.

I bought them on ebay, not shipped yet.. The part number is 26262-01P40.
Dealers have them for 5.83 each I think. Not bad, but my local dealers dont have them in stock so I just get them online~

Interesting. Let us know how they work out.

Thanks for the awesome right-up!!! Not sure if anyone posted anything about green bulbs, but I just installed them and they look amamzing! They defenitely look better then the picture...very uniform color and no hotspots that I can tell. Thanks again!!!


image host

Interesting, first radical color change with these bulbs I think. Definitely hard to get a real world idea with the camera doing what it does but thanks for posting!

YES!!! That's what I've been asking for, I am quite surprised it came through so darn well considering the tinting on the gauges.

Thank you so much for posting man! That looks great!

nice i did mine in blue but the green is cool

ok got a question what do you mean by needle light up dont they light up stock or no? i have and 02 maxima 5.5 i think and i have the four leds already and was wondering since i will have the cluster out if the leds will light up the needles also or is that something else i have to do they are the 74 with 360 degree illumination. putting them in tomorrow i guess ill find out then .

that green on beseenwithgreen's gauges kinda reminds me of the green lighting theme that the 2nd gen digital dash cars had.

The needles will light up just like stock do, maybe a bit brighter, but not like my pictures, in those picutres I actually custom-installed LED's under the needles.

Yeah, reminds me personally of my old '97, I did that car out in green it was very easy on the eyes. That was my first LED project

Creative and different. Not my taste, and I don't care for the way the red needles all but disappear... but thumbs up for trying something that people here didn't do. And from your SN I gather you have a green thing going on, so more power to you.

However, when you say there aren't any hotspots... no, they're right there in the picture at the expected locations. It's going to happen no matter what the bulb or color, unless you wire in new LED's like Tunermax does.

Yeah I looked at that after posting my green pic, those needles really look bad with a green background. But it still looks original, so I like it.

As for the hotspot thing, I have a trick for fixing that. Do you guys think there is enough interest for me to make the piece for isolating the hotspots? I could just make them and ship them out to you guys as needed, cost would be $7 + shipping. Installation is fairly simple, just peel and stick style.

Guys you are so right.....I defenitely had beer goggles on when I did that install ) Tonight I just realized that yes there are hot spots in the areas mentioned earlier on the thread. And yes the needles defenitely fade away a bit prematurely Both things aside...ITS GREEN! lol so what else could someone with my screen name ask for!!! I can live with it so once again thanks for the write-up!!

Man what I would do to get those clear/green needles on my cluster!!!! Anyone know if that is at all possible to install from a different gen max?

I was going to look into this as well but ended up liking the red/blue theme that I ended up with. I would suspect it's quite possible, but replacing needles requries calibration, etc. It's not an easy process and you risk damage to the gauges.

Sorry I can't help you more. FYI, the 4th gen gauges are set up almost exactly the same, and that's where I was going to look first for testing.

I have a 4th gen fuel gauge and a 5th gen gauge cluster with all needls, I can check the fuel gauge needle for you if you want.

That would be greatly appreciated...I never played around with the guages so no sure what all is going on in there but you never know...it might be a simple swap??? Thanks

just wanted to say thanks to TS for giving me the link for the LED's...took a little prying out of the bulb connectors but after a couple tries it lites up nice..
thanks again..

ok I received my bulb today, exactly the 26262-01p40...But it is slightly different with the original one... I can screw them on, but it still wont light up.......what can i do now?

Is this difficult to take this out? I have a bulb out on the right side of the AC control unit.....cant see fan speed, off or mode buttons on the right at night want to just replace them.

Very easy. If you know how to get the Acc out of the dash then skip to the second paragraph below

take dash apart and remove the Radio/Acc with brackets still attached. then outside of the car or on your lap remove the 4 screws that hold onto the Acc. You will need to pull on the brackets slightly outwards and pull the acc back and downwards because of the way it nestles under the radio faceplate and between the brackets.

Once the Acc is out, there is 4 little silver screws that are out in the open that hold onto the faceplate/circuit board. remove those and the faceplate should just come right off and you will be able to swap bulbs. When you put the faceplate back onto the body of the Acc make sure you dont bend any pins and it requires almost no force to get it seated correctly

Thanks appreciate it.......

Very strange. I forget the history here but did you try mixing other bulbs/bases in that same slot to make sure it wasn't something other than the wedge itself? Maybe that particular connection?

I tried to put another working led w/ wedge in that hole, it was lit up with no problem, and I tried to put the bad wedge in another hole, not lit up...So im pretty sure its the wedge...Now I plan to order one from the dealer...

Doh, sorry to hear about that! I guess there's always a chance that something small and delicate like that can break when modifying things. If you have a local Pick-U-Part or junkyard you could try there first but that might be more hassle than paying the dealer big bucks for the real deal.

There is only one junkyard around here..and there is only one maxima..whose cluster is missing......