1995 interior LED upgrade

BuckeyeJeep

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2021
Messages
37
Location
Lancaster, Ohio
Hey everyone, new to the site but not new to Jeeps. Just bought a pretty clean 95 and looking to start making it my own.
4 liter, 5 speed. I guess I have 2 questions: I put LED headlights in and want to do LED taillights next, and then interior LED's
1) If I don't mess with side maker lights, can I put in the new LED taillights and just change the flasher relay to a LED capable relay? I don't want to mess with resistors and start chasing down electrical gremlins.
2) I'd like to change all instrument panel/interior lighting to LEDs. I searched the site but didn't find anything on this (but could have easily missed it, not good with computers). Was hoping to find a write up with exactly how many LED bulbs are needed and corresponding sizes. If anyone has any insight it would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
 
Hmm. I posted this a while ago but not sure why the search didn't pick it up.
Link: https://wrangleryjforum.com/threads/led-dash-lights.27170/#post-426107

The LED lights are much better now and I went with the white but others use red for the gauges. The warning lights are easily viewed at day or night.

One thing I learned is the Check Engine Light actually has a very slight current going through it all the time as the wire comes from the engine computer. With the original incandescent light bulb it not enough to see but with the LEDS it has a very slight glow at night, that's normal. If there's a problem it gets very bright.

Also the dimmable LED's only work with current flowing in one direction. If the bulb doesn't work then pull it out and reverse it. The thin wires are also a little difficult to get a good connection with when pushing them into the plastic holder. I had 5 out of a box of 10 give me problems but if I spent time making sure they were properly seated they all would have worked. I bench tested each bulb and they were all good.

Also clean off all corrosion you see where the bulbs screw in. There will be corrosion, there always is.
cheers.
 
For the tail lights: Yes, you can install any LED tail light, and then you need to get the EF32RL flashers, which have ground wires on them. Buy two of them, one for hazards and one for turn signal. The ground wire allows the flasher to basically be a computerized solid state part which will electronically blink the turn signal when it receives power from the steering column. Works great. Leave the front bulbs alone if you don't want to have to do rewiring. If you do want to go LED up front and sides, I can help you get that wiring taken care of. Not hard, but just need to know what to do and need to be able to splice wires. I rewired mine and it was worth it, I love the LED options I can use up front now. I'm running switchbacks with clear lenses on mine.

For what it's worth, I REALLY like the Quadratec tail lights. They are not the best choice if going offroad and going to hit them on things, but for a stock upgrade, you can not beat them. They are crazy bright, nice quality, and a complete kit. Pictured below. I also have a very bright 921 red bulb from VLEDS. Their 6-led super bright option. It is eye burning.

Addressed this in the other post but there are basically 8 194s throughout both clusters and heater control. 5-6 #74s in the idiot cluster above the steering column, I recommend doing those in color, not white, although sometimes white produces ok results. Typically with an LED you want the color to match the colored lens for best results but depending on the shade of white used if it's semi warm like an incandescent, that works fine usually.

IMG_0026.jpeg
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: doc-ketamine
Ok, interesting. A few weeks ago, I bought LED turn signals for the front and side markers as well as the flashers you mentioned above with the ground. Hooked it all up and the side markers do not work as turn signals when the running lights or headlights are off. Only when they are on. Otherwise they do not flash or light up. Also, when the running or headlights are on, they flash opposite the front turn signals. I went back to normal lights and flashers. Is there any way to have front LED turn signals and side markers flash together when the running or headlights are off?
 
Quick clarification of “opposite “. Left front blinker flashes on, left side marker off. Left blinker flashes off, left side marker flashes on. same for right side.
 
Ok, interesting. A few weeks ago, I bought LED turn signals for the front and side markers as well as the flashers you mentioned above with the ground. Hooked it all up and the side markers do not work as turn signals when the running lights or headlights are off. Only when they are on. Otherwise they do not flash or light up. Also, when the running or headlights are on, they flash opposite the front turn signals. I went back to normal lights and flashers. Is there any way to have front LED turn signals and side markers flash together when the running or headlights are off?
Two problems. One is that your side marker bulbs are probably not non-polar. The side markers end up seeing current in both directions at times so they have to be a non polar bulb to work properly in stock form. Being nonpolar means it doesn’t care which wire is ground or power.

The bigger problem is you installing LEDs in the front sockets. The side markers depend on the front glass bulbs for ground. They ground through the filaments. LEDs do not allow this to occur. The solution is the diode/resistor mod which is where you rewire the side markers to no longer depend on the front bulbs for ground.

The current wires going to the side marker are parking lamp, and turn signal. Each of those needs to be cut and have a diode wires onto them, and then a small inline resistor on the parking lamp wire to waste current. Then those two wires get spliced together after the diodes and resistors. The diodes will keep either circuit from backfeeding the other. Those spliced wires go to one side of the side marker socket. Then you splice on a wire to the other wire of the socket and run that straight to a ground point. Screw on the fender or whatever you want to use.

The trick for the resistor is to buy a kit and play around with what ohm rating you like. The idea is to use something that dims the parking lamp as much as possible while still keeping it visible at night. I use VLEDS 26-LED amber bulbs which are super bright on full brightness. I believe I’m using 560 ohm resistors on mine. What you end up with is a dim running lamp, and then when you turn on the turn signal the bulb gets full unresisted power so it lights up full brightness on top of the dim parking lamp mode. It essentially operated a 2 wire bulb as a 3 wire bulb. It will blink with the front bulb 100% of the time and will never alternate anymore.

Here is a good write up for it in case my writing off the top of my head is unclear. Overall not too bad at all, just some simple splicing.


Side marker mod

Here is mine. I run VLEDS 70-LED switchbacks up front which are white when on and amber when blinking for signal. Kind of a cool modern touch. Of course you need clear or smoked housings for that.

Hope this helps.

 
Ok then. Good to know. Thanks for taking time to write that up. I’ll look into that.
 
Ok then. Good to know. Thanks for taking time to write that up. I’ll look into that.
No problem. Worth it for sure in my mind if you know how to do simple wiring. I would recommend a cheap 1/2 watt or 1 watt resistor kit on amazon, they come with all sorts of resistance values so you can fine tune the low side brightness. I would suggest as high of a brightness bulb as you can find for the signal portion, since you will dim it down as a running light anyways. That's why I like the bulbs I use, they are good quality and very bright. I've had problems with cheap amazon junk.