LED dash lights

Flyer58

Flyer58

YJ Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
922
Location
Magnolia, Texas
I'm finding the warning lights are 74, T5 bulbs and the gauge lights are 194, T10

Has anyone installed these? I'm reading some flicker. Any recommendations?
Thx.
 
Walt Jaquith said:
I put leds in mine, and love them. It's a good time to clean all the contacts and dielectric grease the connectors as well. My gauges give me no problems.
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Sounds good. I ordered some of the small ones for the warning lights which I hope help. I've been driving like an old man on the road for miles with my blinker on. :)

Lots of dirt and a mud wasp next or two got cleaned out while taking those panels off.

My gauges are good but the gas gauge indication is intermittent. I tested the gauge and it's ok so it might be the sending unit in the tank. I had trouble getting a meter reading on that end of the plug back there.

Thanks
 
Oh yeah, much better. $6 for qty. of 10 through Amazon and they arrived the next morning at 9:30am. Now you won't see me driving down the road like an old man with my blinker flashing. These are now easily daylight readable over the original incandescent.

I didn't change the seatbelt and "Up arrow" time to shift lights so they'll stay dim.

LED Lights.jpg
 
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I changed only 5 of the warning lights because I didn't care about the seatbelt or the little arrow telling me when to shift. The arrow is wrong anyhow when using bigger tires. The gauge cluster uses a different size bulb and I was going to wait to see how I liked the warning light before going ahead with the gauge lights. I think it's only one light for each gauge.

Mine is a 1992 YJ so a 94 may have different options with more lights .
 
92-95 will have 4 194 bulbs (2 per gauge) in the tach/speedo cluster and 2 bulbs in the 5-gauge cluster (1 bulb between the 2nd and 3rd gauges and another bulb between 4 & 5 - 4wd has its own bulb so nothing needed there - you can put an LED there if desired too).

Personally, I’d skip the whole LED gauge light endeavor. Most of them don’t dim. Maybe it’s just me and my sensitive eyes (or that I’m really picky) but not being able to dim them makes it a no-go for me. LEDs are typically pretty bright too so for me it’s just way too uncomfortable. I can’t even fathom the outcomes of those who choose super bright blue. That is really hard on eyes. I dunno, just my stance on it. Personally I find that the stock bulbs produce a very calming color tone with more than adequate brightness - so I’m good with stock.

On the flip side - I 100% recommend LEDs in the idiot lights. The stock bulbs there are way too dim, especially the turn signals when the top is off and sun is out. can’t see them at all. I run colored ones behind each lens which produces an incredibly nice looking color tone and brightness on each. I need to put a small ohm value resistor on the CEL so it will quit staying dimly lit when the key is on.

I do recommend an LED in the heater panel too. Stock bulbs melt the panel. I chose a bright LED and then dimmed it with a resistor. It still got hot at full brightness but with the resistor it stays ice cold so it will be perfect for my heater control.
 
Thanks, macho. Maybe im the idiot, but what exactly do you mean by idiot lights lol ? location and how many?
And is the heater panel the same size as the others? Thanks
 
BuckeyeJeep said:
Thanks, macho. Maybe im the idiot, but what exactly do you mean by idiot lights lol ? location and how many?
And is the heater panel the same size as the others? Thanks
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Hah, the idiot lights are the ones above the column. Turn signals, high beam, check engine, park brake and seat belt. Those are #74. I deleted the seat belt buzzer and light, so I needed two reds (parking brake & CEL), one blue (high beam), and two greens (turn signals). For some weird reason the PCM outputs a small amount of voltage on the check engine circuit when the the key is on. It’s not enough for a bulb to light up but an LED will light up dimly so a small ohm rating resistor can be used to waste that energy to keep the led off.

The gauges and heater control all use 194s which is the same as a 168 except 194 is less wattage as a bulb. In the LED world 194/168 are effectively identical.

They’re expensive but I buy all my LED bulbs from VLEDS. Have not had one failure, great color & brightness, overall no regrets with them.
 
Flyer58 said:
Oh yeah, much better. $6 for qty. of 10 through Amazon and they arrived the next morning at 9:30am. Now you won't see me driving down the road like an old man with my blinker flashing. These are now easily daylight readable over the original incandescent.

I didn't change the seatbelt and "Up arrow" time to shift lights so they'll stay dim.

View attachment 116045
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Quick question, how do you remove the cover off the lights? And do you know what all the lights are for/icons. My shift arrow is staying on all the time and I checked for codes and nothing so I believe the light is missing and need to check it.

Thanks
 
SKINNER said:
Quick question, how do you remove the cover off the lights? And do you know what all the lights are for/icons. My shift arrow is staying on all the time and I checked for codes and nothing so I believe the light is missing and need to check it.

Thanks
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It just takes a few minutes to remove the dash cover over the steering column and maybe the one over the heater controls. Easy to find Philips head screws but be careful because there's a few tabs which lock them together. Also two screws for the speedo and tach. Pretty obvious ones you start removing them. I can't recall if I had to remove the two gauges to get behind them or not but again it was easy.

Good time to wash the speedo and tach clear plastic cover with soapy water and make them look new but don't scratch them. Be careful.

That shift arrow is a vacuum switch hidden somewhere and is usually wrong with bigger tires. I'd just remove the bulb and drive on.

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