Interior Lights

[xeroinfinity]

You should take a good pic of the guages with your car idling.
Then remove the cluster, take another good pic showing the needle possitions.

When you put them back on, do it with the cluster disconnected and match the needles to your pic.
Then when its hooked up make sure they all read the same at idle.

I know its tricky to pull them off, the face plate kit might come with a small "L" shaped tool to help pop them off.
Just dont get crazy with pulling or twisting them, that'll damage the guage .

Good Luck and Happy Holidays!

[Theessence]

Ok I'll give that a shot once it gets here.

Do you think you could get me a little info on how you added lights to your dome light? I just put one of those blue sheaths over my light but it isn't real bright and would like it a little brighter.

I also just changed the door lock lights to blue too. I ended up doing the sharpie thing because the gel covers didn't look real solid in there without rigging it up with some tape or adhesive. We'll see how it looks tonight!

I just remembered when I put that gel cover on the dome light, the whole area started smoking once the bulb heated up. I don't know why it would do that. Any idea and is it safe to keep it there?

[xeroinfinity]

I'll dig up the pic for the dome light. I did remove this piece and drilled a hole in each of the two tabs the blubs connect to, soldered a short wire to them(figuring out which is + and -.
Then I cut a CD into a small piece that fit into the socket , drilled the aprropriate holes in the CD for the LEDS.

Yeah the door locks works with coloring the top white piece.
On the window buttons it is tricky to get the gel to set on top and around the edges, thats why I used clear silicone to hold them on(a little tape till they dried).

On the gels smokin, they'll do that a couple times, then it'll get hard and crunchy and wont smoke anymore. You can also put them gels on the bulbs in your mirror, clear lens's pop off.

[xeroinfinity]

Ok I found some pics of the dome.

The arrows indicate the retainer tabs that hold the dome to the headliner.


This one shows how the two rear lightswitches are connected to the main housing. As you can see a couple pieces broke.... (large pic 1024x768)
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...omedisman2.jpg
You'll notice the red circle thats the switch that changes the domelight from on-off-on w/door open.
You'll also see which is positive and negative.

This doesnt show much... but the two parts that held the factory bulb in, I just used a dremil tool and put a hole in each side(just one tab) then lightly solderd a short wire to connect the LEDS.(which came in a set a 5LEDs but some resistors got broke during installation and I used what was left in the set).


This shows how I made the CD piece fit and marked holes for LEDs.


This ones a trial fit.... without LEDs


I'll get some pics of it done in the car, it's cold as hell and almost a blizzard here right now.
I've gots some work to do, but I'll post the other pics tonight when I can.


edit>>

Ok I remember now, I could not fit that cd piece in there with all the LEds hooked up.
I cut a rectangle piece 1/2" x 2.5-3" and fit it into the factory bulb holder by prying it apart then squeazing it to hold the unit in place with the Leds, as seen below.(also see that the led holder cracked in the middle )



My idea was to only use one resistor on the Positive side, then just solder each LED to the next, then ground the last one.
The resistor side of the LEDS has a tendancy to break while craming them into the dome light, just thought you should know that try and carefully fold them.

[Theessence]

Wow my dome looks completely different. This is what mine looks like.



Do you know what kind of bulb that is? It isn't the 212 festoon ones like most of the other ones I've seen. Here's another angle. You can kind of see the bulbs have wires coming out of them that hook around 2 metal brackets in my dome.


Edit:
Just did a little research and the ones I have are 561's instead of 212's like you have. I was looking at LED's from http://www.superbrightleds.com/ but they don't have the 561's. Anyone know of another reputable place for LED's that might have them? I found http://autolumination.com/festoon.htm but I've never heard of them before.

On the lock light situation, the lights aren't bright at all with the sharpie over that white piece. Is there anything else I can do to allow more light through? I scraped off the word "lock" on one of my buttons just to see what would happen. A tiny bit of light comes through if its pitch black outside but otherwise you can barely see that it's lit.

[xeroinfinity]

That is different, you have the 2door coupe ??

My LEDs were just a set of 5-6 that I picked up at the Zone, around $15. They are all wired together.
I know I have seen people with a bulb that was an LED but I'm not sure where they got them, and like you said thier not very bright.

You could put way more LEDs in your dome.
Just need some plastic(old cd or cd case) cut it to fit into the dome light housing. Drill the holes for the LEDs, then wire them up. You just need to find the positive and neg. sides in your domelight.

[xeroinfinity]

Something I just thought of looking at your gels, they are not even transparent....
Some guys at my shop said that over the summer Advace and Autozone both had those and they are crap!

The ones I have #LT802B are transparent and much brighter!!
Were the one's you picked up the same part # ??

[xeroinfinity]

I got a pic of my SE's buttons at night, hard to get a good pic. My window buttons are kinda worn.



My GT is white cause I'm doing green but havnt had time to find something that would work and look good.

[Theessence]

Wow your lock lights are WAY brighter than mine. Are you sure you didn't do anything other than take off the old orange sleeve and then sharpie over the white piece? I think what I'm going to end up doing is puting a blue LED in there. I did some searching and found a couple of tutorials out there. One at grandamgt.com.

I also just ordered an LED festoon bulb to put in the dome light. The gel sleeve I had was part #LT802B from Autozone which is the same as the one you have. Yours would also be brighter because we have different dome lights all together. I've only got the 1 bulb in there.

The LED's will all be here mid next week and I'll get some before/after pictures and post them :-)

[xeroinfinity]

That pic is with the orange gel pulled off and one of those blue gel pieces just stuck on top(like I explained before).

To use the LEDs you just find the grey wire, which is the dimmer power wire, at the button/switch you want to replace.
Cut the grey wire, solder in the proper resistor.
The LED will fit right into the factory bulb socket with a little trimming of the fat bottom edge of the LED.
Then make sure the LED wires are on the correct polarities in the socket.

I think the GAGT site is where I saw where someone had thiers with LEDs.

ps - those LT802B gels may be the same #'s but they are not the same.
The ones I have or more transperant. And my door(dome)light is realy the same, one long bulb , then two map lights for the rear which yours doesnt have.

[Theessence]

Huh, that's weird that they'd be different. Maybe they changed the gels or something. Hopefully the LED's will turn out ok so I won't have to worry about it.

I read that you have to join 2 grey wires pre-resistor in order for it to work properly. Is that right? I don't remember exactly what it looked like but I'm not sure if there even were 2 grey ones.

[xeroinfinity]

I dont remember connecting any two grey wires.
Thier is 1 grey that goes to each button, thats the dimmer wire. Here is a wire diagram that might help.

http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/...d/Pontiac.html