Towncivilian, what model number led did you use for the dome light and which ones for the map light?

I went to autolumination.com and they have several different types for the dome lights: 8 LED Super High Flux, 6 LED Super High Flux , 12 LED Two-Face, and so on and so on. The same goes for the front map lights: Ba9s Bayonet Base Matrix 5 Led Bulbs and The Superstar.

I basically want the same output you have in your pics.

Thanks!!

Map lights: BA9s-CWHP6 I opted for these because they are the cheapest high-powered of the bunch ($4.95 each) vs $9.95 for the next one up that has 9 LEDs. These bulbs are not fully twisted into the sockets in my map light housing, they're at an angle to provide more light output since if they were fully twisted in the socket, only one LED would be pointing down. Not ideal, in other words. If you've got the cash maybe spring for BA9s-WHP9.
Dome lights: 3022-CWHP4

Awesome!! Thanks for the quick reply Towncivilian!!!

Put a normal incandescent #74 bulb back in the SES light. Boy does it get hot within a few seconds. It's nice to have a completely dark gauge again other than the gauges, though. I moved the red high power LED that was in the SES spot to the O/D off position. I did try it in the gas gauge position and it looked neat - colors blended between the blue speedometer gauge and the red gas gauge. I didn't take a picture, though. Also tried in odometer, was pretty ugly and resulted in a visible spot of light in the center of the screen. The same LED in a turn signal spot resulted in an almost invisible dull red. I settled for the O/D off spot since I didn't think of anything else that I'd often see, and a normal white LED in that position was rather dim in direct sunlight. I could have put it in the low gas light position, but I'd have no way of verifying its operation until I actually run low on gas. I also removed the normal LED that was in the nonfunctional "low washer fluid" twist base and just have an empty twist base in its position now.

funny thing i stuck all the original bulbs back in and everything worked fine.so as i did each one i checked it and turned them on.When i put all the LED's in except in the lower portion where odometer reading is everything lite up fine! but as soon as i went to put one in there that is when i get the issue and half the gauge cluster won't light up so i just left that one a regular bulb

I'm not liking the soldering job on Super Bright LEDs' SMD LEDs. The soldering for one lead broke off for my glovebox bulb (a single-LED SMD cool white LED) and it fell into the socket, causing a short and blowing the taillight fuse. Luckily there was a 10A fuse in one of the spare slots behind the coin drawer, but I'll need to get a new one to put there from the junkyard. A "normal" cool white #74 LED went into the glovebox lamp housing, which still appeared to be brighter than the original #74 bulb with blue latex over it.

hey folks,
would I be able to place red bulb condoms over the existing bulbs to change my tach/spedo to red? also do you think this could be done for all the switches / hvac / radio bulbs? I did this in my wrx and it turned out really nice. Just got my pathy and need your advice / your thoughts. thanks

I don't know. You might be able to simply use red tri-LED bulbs, it would probably overpower the existing blue filter. If I had any red high-power LEDs I'd try it in one of the gauge spots for you... I was actually thinking of trying this, but I'm a poor college student and can't afford more LEDs right now

I wouldn't touch the hazard and rear defroster switches - they're difficult to reassemble, and if you damage the hazard switch contacts beyond repair during reassembly, your turn signals will not function until you get a new one. Just replace the existing microbulbs if they are burnt out; same with manual HVAC buttons (A/C and circulation). You can replace the HVAC control backlighting with LEDs, just not the two buttons themselves. Different story for auto HVAC, but I have no experience with that.

Just change the bulbs... the time spent taking it apart, twisting everything out and feeding a stupid piece of plastic wont do much for yah, Better off getting new bulbs and making it brighter and sexier

Towncivilian wrote:I don't know. You might be able to simply use red tri-LED bulbs, it would probably overpower the existing blue filter. If I had any red high-power LEDs I'd try it in one of the gauge spots for you... I was actually thinking of trying this, but I'm a poor college student and can't afford more LEDs right now

I wouldn't touch the hazard and rear defroster switches - they're difficult to reassemble, and if you damage the hazard switch contacts beyond repair during reassembly, your turn signals will not function until you get a new one. Just replace the existing microbulbs if they are burnt out; same with manual HVAC buttons (A/C and circulation). You can replace the HVAC control backlighting with LEDs, just not the two buttons themselves. Different story for auto HVAC, but I have no experience with that.

K thanks bro. would i need to install resistors when installing in all of the led's? what is the existing blue filter? I have heard people mention this here and there... is it a film that covers the entire back of the gauges? Thanks for your advice

No, the LED bulbs you buy should have the proper resistors for 12-14.4v operation. The blue "filter" is just the actual insert for the gauges, the numbers, dashes, etc are tinted blue.

I know this is a VERY old thread at this point, but I recently replaced the dash lights in my 97' and discovered that they were 168 bulbs used for illumination, with the smaller (74) bulbs for the warning lights. I was able to make the 74 leds work by bending the copper tabs in, but unfortunately my washboarded road managed to loosen one in just 5 days. I have ordered 5smd leds (these: http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/ ... D-xHP5.htm) that are a direct replacement for 168s and will try those out. Hopefully this is helpful to anyone with a pathfinder as old as mine.

Since alx3311 drudged up this old thread I figured I might as well add in my two cents.

I replaced my dash lights because I thought I had a burnt out bulb. I ordered the tri-LED in super white, but after I ordered them the dash light that was out came on one night when it was really cold out. So the bulb was not burnt out, which meant I had to figure out where the short was happening.

Well, I pulled the dash unit, replaced the incandescent lights with the LEDs using the bases I purchased from autolumination.com and immediately smoked the dash panel and popped the fuse upon plugging it back in. Replaced the fuse, and tried again and received a small trail of smoke and no illumination of any LED. I put the incandescent lights back in and checked them and they still lit up (except the one that was the original problem). So I looked at the stock base and the base I had purchased and realized the were different.

The contact points on the purchased base were totally backwards. It's difficult to describe the difference, but I'll try to ascii draw the difference:

| |
(0) - Purchased base (contact points are connected on opposite sides of the bulb by the '(' - bulb is noted by the '0')
| |


|-|
O - Stock base (contact points are connected by the filament that wraps around the bottom of the glass bulb's base)
|-|

The stock base was too loose for the LED and no amount of bending the contacts produced a tight fit, but with the stock base the LED lit up like it should. So I pulled the copper inserts from the purchased base, twisted the contact points to mimic the stock base, turned the LED 90 degrees and now the contact points were correctly oriented. I inserted the copper back into the base and once I had the correct polarity on the LED the lights came on like normal. I took a graphite pencil and filled in the contact points on the circuit board for the bulb that was not lighting correctly and that seems to have solved the problem.

The white bulbs still show as blue due to the blue film on the dash cover. The white bulbs are brighter than the blue but still not quite as bright as I'd like so I might swap them out for the 5 LED ones in the future.

Why did you purchase bulbs with the bases, instead of purchasing individual bulbs and simply swapping out the bulbs? At least you didn't do any permanent damage to the cluster, though, but it obviously would've been preferable for a fuse to blow instead of it starting to smoke.

I bought the individual bulbs and new bases because I didn't want to have to pull the incandescent lights from the stock bases since they tend to shatter. The board showed no signs of burning or black marks from the smoke. My best guess is that the flux around the solder points was burning off, hence the smoke generation. This would make sense since the arrangement of the copper contact points in the bases was effectively creating a feedback loop at the first bulb and the increased current at the plug would cause the solder points to heat up rather quickly. I did not leave the lights on for more than a half second once I noticed the smoke, so nothing should have been damaged.

If I had reused the stock bases I don't think they would have held the bulbs tight enough and a couple hard bumps would have knocked them loose. The contact points on the stock bases also did not line up very well with the terminal points on the LEDs, and it took some fussing with them to test the LED in the stock base.

It is fairly obvious that the new bases were incorrect for those LEDs, which makes me wonder why autolumination.com is selling them as #74 bases?

Edit: I would wager a good sum of money this is exactly what happened to 02pathfinderle way back when. I do not think he burned out the dash, and if he had checked the 10A fuse for the tail lamps in the engine bay fuse box it probably had popped and replacing it would have solved the issue.

Removing the bulbs from the stock bases isn't a difficult task, as long as you're careful. I only broke one bulb in its base, and removal of the remnants wasn't horrible.

I use the stock bases with bulbs from SuperBrightLEDs and some seem pretty loose, but only my ashtray bulb loosens itself occasionally - every other bulb has worked fine since 116k miles (I now have 130k miles) even if they seem pretty loose.

Maybe you should send an email to autolumination asking why their bases are incompatible.

I broke the bulb in the base I used to test the LED, and you are right, it wasn't that difficult to remove the remnants. Since I modified the new bases the bulbs are tight in them and I am confident they will never shake loose. I really didn't want to end up without a speedo backlight on a dark night, but if I couldn't modify the new bases I would have just reused the stock ones and hoped for the best.

Hi just got a 99.5 pathfinder and was wondering if the dark gauge would also reflect a blue or white light or if possible for me to upgrade to 01-02 white gauge.

I don't think you can swap gauges between years due to potential differences in the wiring.

Could you post a picture of your gauge cluster?

Welcome to NICO.

I know this is an old thread, but I found this really helpful, my only questions are:

I have an '02 Pathfinder and looks like just 3 spots to put my bulbs (bought the matrix 3 ones). Is there a 4th spots I'm missing? Because it doesn't look right. Looks lights the top half is brighter than the bottom half of the #'s, and the fuel isn't as bright, yet the bottom is fine.

Also has anyone tried the Matrix 5's from Automlumination?? http://www.autolumination.com/74.htm

redneckincanada wrote:I know this is an old thread, but I found this really helpful, my only questions are:

I have an '02 Pathfinder and looks like just 3 spots to put my bulbs (bought the matrix 3 ones). Is there a 4th spots I'm missing? Because it doesn't look right. Looks lights the top half is brighter than the bottom half of the #'s, and the fuel isn't as bright, yet the bottom is fine.

Also has anyone tried the Matrix 5's from Automlumination?? http://www.autolumination.com/74.htm

I feel silly replying to an old post, but in the small chance that you're still out there, have you solved the problem? A picture would certainly be helpful.
From the sounds of it, the light isn't 'directionally' in the best position.

Regardless, I'm planning on changing the bulbs in a 1998.5 QX4, if anyone has any tips from doing a similar dash, that would be awesome.

Well my reply is old as well, and it looks good now, but damn, it takes A LONG TIME of trial and error to get them to work. Be prepared to constantly switch the lights and plugs around over and over again before they finally work!

redneckincanada wrote:Well my reply is old as well, and it looks good now, but damn, it takes A LONG TIME of trial and error to get them to work. Be prepared to constantly switch the lights and plugs around over and over again before they finally work!

It's really funny that you replied because I just received my correct (ordered the wrong size the first time) bulbs in the mail and planned to install them hopefully by this weekend.

Thanks for the advice, I was hoping it would be simple but it seems I might have some playing around to do.

Thought I would post this just as an update and provide some more images about dashlight LED modding;

The process was just as described in this and the other post regarding these LEDs.

1. Two screws to remove the plastic frame, which you slip out over the steering wheel (protect it with a cloth as it WILL scratch [I have a minor scratch over the steering wheel now live an learn]).
2. 4 screws to remove the cluster (two on top, two on bottom). The bottom ones can be tricky, my model (1998) had holes that made it easy for the screw to fall into the steering wheel column area but for the most part you can feel around with a small hand and find it back..
**3**. Bit of a shortcut that no one else seemed to mention. I didn't have to take off my negative ground cable from the battery because I didn't unplug the cluster at all. I was able to just pull it out enough to pull out the bulb housings (twist and pull).
4. Once you have the housing(s), you just pull out the old bulbs (take your time, they can be tough and you don't want to break it..) and pop in the new LEDs (polarity matters, and since I left the cluster plugged in, it was super easy to flick it on and see if it worked or not.) If it doesn't work, just twist and pull the housing, and insert it again, but rotated 180 degrees

Anyway, 1998 QX4 took #74/T5 bulbs in the dash for the 4 main bulb slots. I saw that people were losing their red lines/speedometer hands because BLUE would not show through the RED filters. I purchased 'AQUA BLUE/BABY BLUE' bulbs because I also wanted a blue'ish colour but a bit of white light to illuminate through the RED filters.

I think it came out alright!

Original cluster lighting:




Aqua blue LED lighting:

Karona wrote:Thought I would post this just as an update and provide some more images about dashlight LED modding;

The process was just as described in this and the other post regarding these LEDs.

1. Two screws to remove the plastic frame, which you slip out over the steering wheel (protect it with a cloth as it WILL scratch [I have a minor scratch over the steering wheel now live an learn]).
2. 4 screws to remove the cluster (two on top, two on bottom). The bottom ones can be tricky, my model (1998) had holes that made it easy for the screw to fall into the steering wheel column area but for the most part you can feel around with a small hand and find it back..
**3**. Bit of a shortcut that no one else seemed to mention. I didn't have to take off my negative ground cable from the battery because I didn't unplug the cluster at all. I was able to just pull it out enough to pull out the bulb housings (twist and pull).
4. Once you have the housing(s), you just pull out the old bulbs (take your time, they can be tough and you don't want to break it..) and pop in the new LEDs (polarity matters, and since I left the cluster plugged in, it was super easy to flick it on and see if it worked or not.) If it doesn't work, just twist and pull the housing, and insert it again, but rotated 180 degrees

Anyway, 1998 QX4 took #74/T5 bulbs in the dash for the 4 main bulb slots. I saw that people were losing their red lines/speedometer hands because BLUE would not show through the RED filters. I purchased 'AQUA BLUE/BABY BLUE' bulbs because I also wanted a blue'ish colour but a bit of white light to illuminate through the RED filters.

I think it came out alright!

Original cluster lighting:




Aqua blue LED lighting:

i cant see the pics unfortunately, if you dont mind can you try to post pics again as i would love to see how your gauge color looks. Thanks!

rube23 wrote: i cant see the pics unfortunately, if you dont mind can you try to post pics again as i would love to see how your gauge color looks. Thanks!

Hey, sorry I have no idea why it's not working because I can see the pictures (I'm thinking Google Drive is blocking sharing or something...)

Anyway, hopefully this works:

Looks nice! If you don't mind can you link which bulbs you used ? I have the cool white ones and don't care much for them.

I used these, cheap but it was actually more than bright enough (as you can see in the pictures)

The '98 needed 4 bulbs for the gauges

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/221917543984?_tr ... EBIDX%3AIT

Thanks for the link. I wonder if those will work in my 04?

Some of my Warning/Indicator lights aren't lighting up when I turn the key to acc (or crank it) in my 2003. Are those bulbs replaceable too? Anyone else replace theirs?