I know this subject has be covered a few times but I do not believe it has been covered

this way. I decided the other day to go ahead and do a conversion on my truck. So I

started by ordering some UV LEDs I purchased 100 of them on ebay for $8.80 shipped to

my front door (If you want the sellers name I am happy to give it to you). These are

really bright true ultra violet (They act just like a black light does) LED's. The LEDs

obviously are not 12 volt so that had to be addressed, you can use ohms law to figure

this out really easily I was feeling lazy so I just went here

http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz plugged in my numbers (12 volt source, my LEDs were 3.2

volts and 30ma) based on that I needed a 330 ohm 1/2 watt resistor. Off to radio shack

and 3 bucks later I had 15 of the correct resistors. Now that I have all my supplies

lets get to tearing stuff apart. The first thing your going to need to do is pull the

gauges out (I suggest you do this one at a time) remove the plastic cover over the

gauges my removing the 4 screws (I am going to assume your gauge cluster at this point

is already out)

[IMG]http://img404.imagesha

ck.us/img404/3389/dsc01178q.th.jpg[/IMG]

There are 4 tabs 2 on the top and two on the bottom this is where you will find the 4

torx screws that need to be removed. Once those are out you must remove your trip meter

reset **** simply twist it counter clockwise and it will come back off. Now remove the

clear plastic cover. Once you remove the clear cover you will be able to remove the

black gauge cover as well.

[IMG]http://img406.imagesha

ck.us/img406/3149/dsc01179k.th.jpg[/IMG]

I got a little ahead of myself at this point and forgot to take pictures. Your gauges

have a blue light diffuser in them, now in my case a blue filter is bad, why you ask?

Because I am shinning purple light through a blue filter, purple is pretty darn close

to blue so a large portion of the light coming from my LED is getting filtered through

the blue diffuser which means my gauge will not gauges will not light up very bright.

The first gauge I tackled was the tach and I am sorry I did not get pictures of the

removing of the light diffuser process. So we are going to start with the speedometer

(Not the removal process for both of them is the same more or less the only major

difference is how the light diffuser is removed I will cover that later). Now using the

same torx you used to remove the clear plastic lense remove the 3 screws holding the

speedometer in place. Once the screws are out the gauge should pop right out.

[IMG]http://img91.imageshack

.us/img91/3693/dsc01181z.th.jpg[/IMG]

Now break into your girlfriend/wife's bathroom and steal one of her hair things (check

out the picture I have no idea what this is but it works really well) slide the hair

thingy under the needle and start pulling straight up the little black cap on the

needle is going to pop off first I found doing this in a plastic bag makes it a lot

easier to keep track of that black cap. It takes a considerable amount of force to get

that needle to pop up but it will come off.

[IMG]http://img198.imagesha

ck.us/img198/3345/dsc01186o.th.jpg[/IMG]

Now it's time to remove the gauge face from it's backing, start at the top corner and

gently peel the gauge away it might not want to go at first but just keep putting

pressure on it once it starts letting go it goes quick. Don't forget you have the trip

meter post still sticking through the gauge face. When you get the face off turn it

over look at the back, see how the numbers are all blue? This is bad! Also see that

little black ring where the trip meter passes through? Don't loose that I removed mine

and slid it back over the trip meter post. The next thing to do is to remove the double

sided tape I found the best way to do this is roll it under your thumb. Start at once

side and just roll this stuff like a giant booger across the back of the gauge face it

takes about 5 minutes to do the whole gauge.

Removing double sided tape...

[IMG]http://img217.imagesha

ck.us/img217/232/dsc01189s.th.jpg[/IMG]

Tape removed...

[IMG]http://img217.imagesha

ck.us/img217/2571/dsc01191w.th.jpg[/IMG]

Alright now we are going to discuss how to deal with the tach. All the procedures are

the same up to this point except you do not need to remove the double sided tape on the

gauge face. For some reason the tach is the only gauge built different in the whole

cluster and actually is the easiest gauge to deal with. Once you have removed the face

turn it over you will see a small magnet likely attached to the back of the gauge face,

Remove the magnet and place it in the correct hole in the clear plastic you just

removed the gauge face from (The hole is right next to where the needle goes, it's

obvious where it goes). The next step is to remove the blue diffuser look at the gauge

face you will see a blue piece of plastic and the gauge face stuck together. Simply

peel them apart. Once you have the blue diffuser peeled off the gauge face put the

gauge face back on by first setting the face over the two nipples sticking out of the

top of the gauge plate then lay it down top top bottom. The tach is now done. (sorry

again no pictures of this process)

I don't have the pictures of the speedometer edited yet, I will have the rest of the

procedure for the speedometer up later this afternoon. Lets talk about how to build the

lights. First off remove the light base from your gauge by twist it counter clockwise.

You might need pliers to get it to turn. Once out remove the light bulb and look inside

the base. There are two brass contacts in there.

[IMG]http://img41.imageshack

.us/img41/5153/dsc01194p.th.jpg[/IMG]

We are going to remove them one at a time and do some soldering. Start by sliding a

small screw driver down the side of one of the contacts. Slowly rotate the screw driver

until you feel it pop.

[IMG]http://img10.imagesha

ck.us/img10/6697/dsc01195fhg.th.jpg[/IMG]

Do the same for the other side of the contact, now it should come right out you might

have ti wiggle it a little bit but it will come out. This is about how the contact

should look when it's ready to come out

[IMG]http://img41.imagesha

ck.us/img41/5692/dsc01196hqo.th.jpg[/IMG]

Here we have the contact out, once you get the contact out set the base aside.

[IMG]http://img37.imageshack

.us/img37/3046/dsc01197g.th.jpg[/IMG]

We are now going to solder the contact and to get it ready for our resistor. I was

doing this inside so I have to protect my table with a leather glove apply a small

amount of solder to the bottom of the contact.

[IMG]http://img39.imageshack

.us/img39/1262/dsc01198a.th.jpg[/IMG]

Now clip one wire of your resister so it's about 1/8" long and bend it over,

[IMG]http://img10.imageshack

.us/img10/7033/dsc01200i.th.jpg[/IMG]

it just so happens the resistor fits perfectly in the contact, so pop the resistor in

heat up the bottom with your soldering iron add just a little solder if you need and

your resistor will be all set.

[IMG]http://img10.imageshack

.us/img10/2759/dsc01202p.th.jpg[/IMG]

Reinstall the contact into the base, use the small screwdriver to shove it back in this

can be a bit of a pain so take your time!

Now repeat the above process to remove the other contact and add solder. This time we

are going to work on the LED (sorry I don't have any pictures of the LED part but it is

the same process more or less.) determine which leg of your LED is the positive lead

(the longer of the two is positive) trim the negative lead so that the LED is slightly

higher than flush with the top of the light bulb base. Now bend the positive lead

straight up solder the negative lead into the contact and reinstall the contact into

the base with the LED. Bend the positive lead over the the resistor clip the resistor

lead and LED lead so they are both short and solder them together. Your LED bulb is now

complete. It should look like this;

[IMG]http://img140.imagesha

ck.us/img140/4941/dsc01208x.th.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img91.imageshack

.us/img91/6734/dsc01207z.th.jpg[/IMG]

install the light into your gauge, if the LED does not light up simple pull it out,

rotate it 180 degrees and it will light up.

I will be covering how to remove the blue light defuser from the rest of the gauge face

in the next part of this how to. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

 

thats not for a 2nd gen dakota dash!

 

I was under the impression the 2nd gen was 91-96...

 

1st gen is 87-96, 2nd gen is 97-04 and 3rd gen is 04-present

But good thing to know!

 

Some people mistakingly believe that 1987-1990 was "Gen 1," and 1991-1996 was "Gen 2."
However, in reality, this is what is called a "slight refresh."

 

Thats sweet! Good Job!

 

Hey guys there's a website that sells the LED bulbs. It's www.superbrightleds.com my husband redid his MR2 dash with LEDs. He wants to redo my backlighting with bulbs from there. Just thought I would help out a little. Also how do you get rid of the green tint from behind the gauges to get rid of the green look?

 

The green is built into the gauge faces. You can go on eBay and buy white gauge faces.
(http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1994-...ht_1858wt_1163)
If you notice the "after" picture, it still looks green.

 

i'm almost positive when they took the picture for the ebay listing they didnt replace the bulbs in the cluster with clear.

most clusters i've taken apart have blue or green "condoms" on them to make that green-ish tint

 

Now wait, it's "part" of the gauge? Then why is there green lit up around the odometer like a green plastic tint is there? Also couldn't you just sand down the back of the gauges to get rid of the green?