So I just got the 10 blue LEDs to put in the instrument panel so my Jeep can be that extra bit sexy and chic.... Exciting, right?

They are to be more practical than the no lights I have now so I am excited to be able to see my dash at night.


What I would like to ask is if the instrument panel has any markings for polarity? Incandescent lights can be either direction but these LEDs will need to go in only one way and I don't want to get them all put in one way only to find out they needed to go the opposite way...

If you have LEDs in your instrument panel, what did you do to ensure proper polarity?

 

Trial and error. But hey the bright side is your bound to get half of them right the first time. I did mine and my sons 2000 xj. put them in and just slide the panel back in enough to turn on your lights.....it helps if its dark. If you plug them in wrong nothing happens to them they just don't come on.


You can also do the shifter panel and the transfer case shift panel. I also did the climate controls but those are tricky and require a different bulb and some serious finess.


Then adjusted my Kenwood head unit to color match the LEDs. Looks cool at night.


Dome lights front and back, license plate light and backup lights are done in white.

 

Sweet, Skb! I will be doing those shifter lights too eventually. Thanks for the ideas!

 

I did the blue LEDs in my cluster...and quickly changed them to white. Make sure they light up before screwing your dash all back together.

 

I had to run a jumper to the wire that powers the lights in the instrument panel because the PO had done some weird stuff in there with the wiring and those lights never worked. Now they are run off a switch until I can decide what else to do with them.

All the lights are working now but it is too light outside still to see how well they work. It will certainly be better than the no lights that were there...

While trying to do this, the speddo cable became a huge obstacle and I couldn't get at the screws on it to remove it. Instead, I just pulled the bulbs out the back while it was still in the dash. As I was doing this, however, the raw speedo cable came out of the tube it was in and I thought I had broken it... Fortunately it worked again when I put it all back together.

Next up will be the other lights in the shifter area and courtesy lamps. Good as new..almost!

 

You've got a pre-97 then. I've got a spare 96 cluster here that I use for testing. If you have any questions I can run tests for you. I can suggest certain lights depending on what you want to accomplish. I don't keep instrument lights in stock any more, but I still have all the ideas.

 

Pimpin'!

 

...as a side note, I had to modify the bulbs to fit. These were tiny little things and I had to pull the leads out to the sides to make contact with the leads in the socket. Not the right bulbs but they do work...

 

One interesting thing about the blue LEDs is that the red metric markings are invisible in the blue light. Who needs that metric crap anyway?

(It is most frustrating having an equal ratio of metric and SAE nuts and bolts in this RENIX.)

 

Looks good, I assume you can still dim or brighten them.

 

I can't dim them because I have deleted the factory headlight switch and am using a switch panel instead. It would be a simple thing to put an inline variable resistor before the lights so I could dim them but I am OK with how they are.

 

I had put green lights in my 91 xj and you could NOT dim them even with the headlight switch.. they take so little power that the lowest setting on the dimmer was still enough power to fully light them..

 

what lights would i need for my 00 xj? any specific number or brand i should look at?

 

The higher end LEDs will work with the dimmer, the cheapo Chinese ones tend to be just on/off.

Pretty much everything is a 134 bulb on the interior of an XJ. Dome light is festoon, the HVAC controls are 74s as are the indicators on the left for 4WD CEL ect but those really aren't worth swapping due to how they're backlit. Everything else is 134, dash, glovebox, courtesy floor lighting, shifters, ect.

 

I never got the leds in my Cherokee's dash to dim very much. The next set I did in my Sierra were a different type of bulb that dimmed just like factory bulbs. I used a cool white color.