mx5cartalk.com

Hey guys,

A couple of bulbs were blown when I bought my car and I think it's time for me to get off my rear end and replace them:

- The bulb behind the rev meter from 4000-7000rpm is not working
- The bulb behind the oil temp meter is not working
- The bulb behind the fan speed / 'where the air will come out of' controller is not working

I believe that there would be 2 to 3 types of bulbs being used here - if someone can tell me the model number and where I can source them, that'll be great.

I think I should be able to figure out how to pull the cluster off from other posts on the forum but any guidance around how I would change the bulb(s) behind the fan speed controller would be great.

Cheers,
Vic

Vic

FFS don't try pulling the cluster out you'll StuffIt if you do it wrong.

Take your seat out and get under the dash you can do the replacement with some funky arm twists and a lot of swearing!

The globes from memory are all the same those blade push in style

BJ

Another thing we can mess around with on saturday, I agree with bj you don't want to make it worse

bjones wrote:Vic

FFS don't try pulling the cluster out you'll StuffIt if you do it wrong.

Take your seat out and get under the dash you can do the replacement with some funky arm twists and a lot of swearing!

The globes from memory are all the same those blade push in style

BJ

.... what do you mean I can stuff it up?... how?

I'd thought it's just taking the plastic black cover off then disconnecting 3 cables and the cluster would just pop out (if you pop all 4 latches)...

Anyone knows what bulb I should get? (otherwise I won't have anything to replace the dead bulbs with...)

You've got to be really quite careful and take some time easing off that black shroud for the cluster, as its very easy to break the tabs that hold it on. It took me more than ten minutes of small movements side to side, in and out, to get it off without breaking. If you just reef it hard it will more than likely break those tabs, so take your time and use a lot of small movements and not too much pressure.
The direction of movement to release the shroud is directly towards you (sitting in the driver seat) and not up and away from the dash.

This may help with bulb choice (listed in top left corner of the cluster photo) but I'm not sure if they are called the same thing in Australia.

I have tried LED's in one of the clusters I have, and the LEDs with the flat top are kind of narrow leading to uneven illumination, I actually prefer the orignal lights than LED's.
Another reason to go with the filament bulbs is that they are a more even match in brightness for the other bulbs in the interior. The LED's in one of my clusters being so bright I dimmed the dash further, but then the lights in the heater panel are dimmed to almost off and its a bit hard to see it! Sorry I'm probably rambling now...

In that m.net thread look further down the page to Lokiel's post about the LED's he bought, there's a photo there of a NeoGaugeLeds package with some star looking ones which I think would work better for an even illumination.

I switched my lights out for LEDs after reading a thread on here, read all the warnings about the potential of stuffing it and took it slowly. I'm actually surprised so many people said it was difficult, took all of a minute to make sure I knew where all the clips were and that was it! Pull and it's out, really simple job. Admittedly I didn't connect the ribbon cable correctly so now I don't have a trip computer Should really fix that!

BadBong wrote:

bjones wrote:The globes from memory are all the same those blade push in style

Anyone knows what bulb I should get? (otherwise I won't have anything to replace the dead bulbs with...)

This should have it: viewtopic.php?f=55&t=31426

There's been so many post flying left, right and centre here and that I've completed missed reading this one that I've started.

Thanks for everyone's help and I'll definitely give it a shot myself following strict instructions