looks good, hope it warms up soon so i can do this.

 

Ya, it was super easy. If someone can take the dash out to get to the bulb, then they can do the led swap.

 

Does anybody have a short summary of the LED conversion? I found the Cardomain post (the old link doesn't work) here:
http://www.cardomain.com/ridepost/60...r-regular-cab/

There's only one picture in the Cardomain post so some of the instructions are a little unclear. Here's what I did understand:
1) Remove both wires from under the contacts at the back of the plastic housing, then straighten them.
2) Carefully wiggle/pull the old bulb out from the housing.

Use a 1/4 watt 470 ohm resistor and a T1-3/4" LED in the color of your choice.

I'm sure I can figure something out for a good way to make everything fit together, but if somebody has a great system that works I'd rather not reinvent the wheel here.

 

My son converted both his and mine, but I didn't see what he did. I will check with him and see if he has any how-to notes (probably just all in his head). Yeah, CarDomain got splattered a few years ago and it's pretty useless now.

 

I have been summoned!

....
Just kidding.

Doing this is a fairly simple process. I could not find any 'plug and play' (or PnP for short) replacement bulbs, which meant I had to get a little creative.

First off, you're going to need to get an LED of some kind for this. I bought a 'prewired' style LED in 'RGB' (slow color changing) from SuperBrightLEDs.com to do this. As the name implies, they already have the proper resistor soldered on with fairly long, thin, wires; but if you're a hobbyist like me, you can make one yourself, too. Choose whatever color you want and let's get started.

First, you'll need to get access to the switch itself. Chrisfix has an excellent video on how to do this, which can be found on youtube. "How to change dashlights" or similarly titled.

Follow that and take the dash apart. Stop when you get the main instrument cluster bezel off. You don't have to remove the switch, but if you'll feel that will make it easier, pull the **** straight off (It's keyed) and remove the three screws holding it onto the bezel.

Next, take a long, flathead screwdriver. On the back of the switch, you'll see the lamp is twisted in. It will only go one way and stop. Once it's unlocked, you can remove the bulb. A gentle slap may be necessary if it's being stubborn. Don't chew it up because we need it. Bare in mind that the following steps will ruin the bulb in the conversion, so if you want to keep it, grab some spares beforehand.

Next, take some pliers and forcefully remove the bulb from it's plastic base, being careful of glass. Also remove the leads from the old bulb. You can attempt to reuse these leads in a few ways, but I find it to be a lot of trouble and not worth the effort.

Using a small drill bit, enlarge the center of the base so that the LED's wires can be easily pushed through. We're using the base to acquire the correct space between the lamp and the dash panel's switch 'legend'.

From there, you have two options. I find the second of the two to be the easiest.

1. Disassemble the switch and solder a wire onto each of the contacts that the original bulb used and lead them out the back, being mindful not to interfere with the space needed for the bulb base. Install the bulb and connect the wires with solder and heat shrink. Doing it this way allows you to 'touch' the wires together with the key on and ensure that the polarity is correct, otherwise the bulb will appear 'dead'.

2. Take a multimeter or test light and locate two wires in the switch's harness. One of which needs to be a ground wire. Optionally, a ground wire can be 'made' by connecting an wire with an eyelet to a metal part of the dash, ensuring that it is grounded to begin with. The other wire that needs to be found is 'hot' with the key on AND when the switch is rotated to either of it's two 'on' positions. End result is the switch is illuminated when the key is on and when the headlights/parklights are on. The bulb should never be off during operation. Connect the LED's wires to these two wires that we've located in the switch's harness, again ensuring that the polarity is correct, otherwise the LED will appear to be dead. Note that this also works well for the 4x4 switch.

 

Thanks Cameron! I figured you had the details stored in that head of yours! LOL :)

He's handier than a pocket on a shirt! :)

 

You're welcome.

 

I haven't even noticed if mine lights up or not - have to check....

 

My guess is that it is burnt out. Almost all of them do because the bulbs were not very shock resistant.

 

I never realized mine was supposed to light up until I noticed the bulb on the back of the switch as I was putting the dash back together. Checked it with a meter to confirm it was dead, then Google brought me to this thread.

 

I rewrote what was on the Cardomain page a bit to make it easier to step through. The result should be attached to this post. Still needs pictures embedded to match the description. If I get a chance to order some LED's and resistors I'll try to edit it together so it's easier to follow.

 

Awesome! That will be helpful to future modders! :)