Thread: How To: B14: Installing New Cluster Gauge Lights

Sweet!

Vadim, i just relize that you have red needles. Did you paint them? I was thinking of doing the same with transparent paint..

Oh weird, I never thought about it!

Since 98 200sx came with white and 99 SE-L's came with golden gauges, they had to have red arrows

I am doing this on my B13 and ran into an issue. From what I can tell, there are only three cluster bulbs for the B13 (only three of the assorted bulbs had the blue plastic over the bulb). Also, all three of the bulbs broke near the base when I pulled them out:





When I tried to put the LEDs that Vadim used in it, I realized after I tested the gauge cluster and none of them worked that the connections on the plastic base were FUBAR'd. Here is a pic with an OEM bulb/base on the left and the LED in the OEM base on the right:



You can see the difference in the connectors to the bulb. Hence it not working. Anybody else run into this problem with their B13? My nissan place here has the units in stock at $2 a piece, so I am going to try swap bulbs with a new unit and see if I have better luck, otherwise I'm probably going to just put OEM ones back in. Any suggestions on how to fix this? Are these made with the bulbs built in? Can I use B14 plastic bases on a B13 cluster?

It's hard to tell if the B14 one's would work. I would just get the B13 ones and call it a day.

As for the lights being stuck, with LED's that shouldn't happen, EVER. LED's don't even remotely get that hot to melt into the plastic hehe.

I used a red sharpie for my gauge needles, haha

OK, my lights still aren't working. I went out and bought two different brand of sockets for the LEDs, because I needed three and one place had only one and another place had two. Here's what they are:



New one is black, OEM one grey:




None of the three light up, although all other dash lights are working. When it didn't work, I undid the socket from the cluster, twisted it 180 degrees, and then put it in figuring that I had the polarity reversed. Nothing.
First question: Could I have the LEDs backwards in the socket, and I need to remove the bulbs from the socket, spin them the opposite direction, then try again?
Second question: Could I have blown a fuse that only acts on those three bulbs? I checked the fuse panel near the dead pedal and all were intact. Where else should I look?
Third question: When will a simple repair job ever be simple?

Those new sockets look more like the B14 ones on the inside.

Alright if your cluster is not put back together, then you can take a 9 volt battery or probably even a AA, connect some misc wires to the sockets and see if the LED light up, if not reverse polarity then see.

If the LED dont light up in the socket, remove it and wire the small battery directly to the led and see if it works. BTW Using Alligator clips will probably be the best bet for testing the sockets/leds.

A fuse could be blown, I keep on forgetting the name of it, but it's for the interior lights. On B14's its in a white box I believe on a fusemap.

On older cars there is no such thing as a simple repair job.

Holy Blue dash, Batman!

I finally got it working. After testing just about everything I could (and the bulbs and sockets were working), I finally tested the back of the gauge cluster and was getting pretty much no current to those spots on the cluster. So I went back through and checked fuses again. Frustrated, I finally just pulled every fuse I could find, and finally found the broken one! The reason I didn't find it earlier?!? Look at what the fuse is labeled as:



Why is it labeled as the tail lamp? Replacing that fuse made life better again and all the bulbs worked. It might be too blue for me, I just ordered 3 more bulbs in the cool white to see if that looks better. So...

For my B13 with the mechanical speedo, it took 3 bulbs to replace the main cluster bulbs, the LEDs listed at the beginning of the thread work, and you can buy replacement sockets for the bulbs at auto parts stores, both of the socket brands listed in post #17 work fine on our clusters and cost about $3-4 each (although the "handypack" one had two sockets in it). If it doesn't work, check the "tail lamp" fuse, it's likely to be the problem.

the taillamp fuse controls the guage cluster, and the taillights