DIY: CLimate Control LED and Brake Light
 

Hello everyone,

I wanted to do these two mods for a while and since I recently finished my exams I've finally had the time. I couldn't find any DIY's so I decided to quickly make one.


What you'll need:

- flat head screw driver
- philips screw driver
- electrical wire
- led strips (I bought mine here: http://www.lck-led.com/p102/New-12%2...duct_info.html)
- about an hour of your time
- some patience


Climate Controls

I did this mod because the stock light doesn't match well with my Si cluster which lights up red. I couldn't live with this =)

1) Pop out the hazard signal and the rear defrost switches. Use a flat head screwdriver to pry them out and be careful not to wreck your dash.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ControlLED.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED1.jpg



2) When they are out, remove unplug the harness. You can see that there is a golden philps screw behind each switch. Take them out.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED3.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED2.jpg



3) Remove the two golden screws under your centre panel.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED4.jpg



4) Remove this screw in the glove box

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED5.jpg



5) Push the glove box in to bypass the rubber stopper

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED6.jpg



6) Remove the black screw at the bottom

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED7.jpg



7) Move to the other side of the dash and remove the panel under the steering wheel. There are three golden philips screws you need to remove

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED8.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ontrolLED9.jpg



8) There are two additional screws on each side of the centre panel. remove them and the panel should become loose. Also unplug the cigarette lighter.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED10.jpg



9) Remove all of the plugs for your radio/head unit and remove it completely.

10) There are 3 screws under the climate control panel you need to remove. here is one of them. The other two are closer to the front, they're tough to see.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED11.jpg



11) This part is a little tricky. There are 4 screws (2 on each side) behind the climate control panel. Remove all 4.

12) Remove the centre console. there are a few clips so you'll have to CAREFULLY pry it out

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED12.jpg



13.1) These are the 4 screws i was referring to in step 11.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED13.jpg



13.2) Remove both knobs for the climate control

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED14.jpg



14) Turn the climate control upside down and remove these three golden philips screws

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED15.jpg



15) Carefully pop off the black plastic cover plate

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED16.jpg



16) Pull out the stock bulbs

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED17.jpg



17) Cut off one of the bulbs (as close to the bulb as you can get)

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED18.jpg



18) Strip the wire. You need to be very careful and get it right the first time since the wire is extremely short

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED19.jpg



19) Take out your LED strip and cut one end off so it fits

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED20.jpg



20) Use some electrical wire to connect the led strip to the wires you stripped in step 18 (you'll have to use tiral and error to figure out which one is positive and negative)

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED21.jpg



21) Test your led strip to make sure it works before you put everything back together. Make sure its plugged in! I forgot to plug it in (I don't know why i even unplugged it in the first place), and when i turned on my headlights and it wasn't working I was all like "WTF".

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED22.jpg



22) Put everything back follow the instructions backwards

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ControlLED.jpg

23) DONE!

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED23.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED24.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED25.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED26.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED27.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...ntrolLED28.jpg





Brake Light

The only reason I even did this simple mod was b/c I have to remove my stock brake light to mount my subs. I think its illegal not to have one, so I did this in case.


1) Remove the rear panel. Mine was already off because I'm working on mounting my subs back there. Its pretty easy to take off. There's the child seat hinge that you need to remove with a socket wrench and then the rest are just clips that need to be popped out.


2) Remove the stock brake light


3) You can see the harness of the brake light in this pic

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...keLightLED.jpg



4) Strip the wires from the LED strip and the wire that you'll need to connect the led strip to the brake light harness

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...eLightLED1.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...eLightLED2.jpg



5) Simply mount the led strip where ever you want using the provided mounting clips. Since my subs will be taking up pretty much all the room on the panel, I mounted my led strip on the top of the windshield

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...eLightLED4.jpg



6) Connect the wires into the harness

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...eLightLED6.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...eLightLED7.jpg



7) Test to make sure the led strip lights up when you apply the brake. If it does hide the wiring from the LED strip to the brake light harness.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...eLightLED8.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...eLightLED9.jpg



8) Replace your rear panel

9) DONE!

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...LightLED10.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...LightLED11.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...LightLED12.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...LightLED13.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...LightLED14.jpg



I also ended up replacing my dome light with an LED one:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2.../domelight.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...domelight1.jpg


All in all, I'm pleased with the way both mods came out - as simple as they may be. The brake light looks a little ****ty, but oh well. I might make a small panel for it or something later on. I'm also gonna have to put LED's in my cluster too because now the climate control is brighter. I hope this DIY is of use to a curious mind out there!

excellent post

wicked post, that was a mission getting the instrument panel out,

nice D.I.Y! did you consider just replacing the climate control bulb into a LED one?
there's a DIY here before about replacing dash bulbs, i think its the same bulb.
http://superbrightleds.com/mini-wedge.html

it was made by silver surfer up 1 post.

can you dim those blinding LED lights like you could the stock ones?

Great DIY!!

This is what a DIY should look like!

Thanks for all the comments, guys.

yeah, its a lot of crap to do to remove the climate control. I suppose they could have made it easier.


yeah, I had bought a few LED's from there before for my cluster. I didn't find them to be what I wanted. They weren't very bright at all.



Yep. Since the LED's were hooked up the the wire for the stock instrument lights, the fader works.

Wow, pretty impressive!

Thanks.

I'll be putting the same LED strips into my cluster sometime next week when they arrive. I don't like how the cluster is noticeably more dull than the climate control.

Well done!

Thanks man

nice diy you should do one of your cluster too

Thanks

I had put an led strip instead of the bulbs that illuminate the needles in my cluster. I didn't take any pics of the process but I ended up taking it out because the white light looks better over the gauges. This is what it looked like with the LED strip shining over the needles:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...etrofit055.jpg


When I find some time, I'll put some led's behind the gauges where the stock bulbs are... i'll remember to take some pics when I do it.