I was not able to send you a PM think you can email your number or even just shoot me an email so i can reach out to you when i'm ready? Thanks

[email protected]

I tried to attach a pic so hopefully it shows up. I’m trying to see what model comes with this cluster. Instead of the background being all black this one also have some grey rings.

Attached Images

 

Hey man do you think it’s worth it and how Much experience do you need to do this job because I have very little but I really wanna do it! Thanks

Not sure why you are interested in which model comes with that cluster. I'm sure you know that is not how they come from the factory. That looks to be an SR5 or Sport. Limited clusters are a little different. IN any case, whatever color you want it to light up is completely up to you regardless of whether it is an SR5, Sport or Limited. The way they come from the factory is kinda dated (orange/yellow light) looking, and changing it refreshes it bigtime.

Good luck

Wow i just finished reading all 111 pages, or at least mostly, that was a feat in of itself.

I am interested in having someone do my cluster in the next month or so. I see that sparky is taking a break. Is there anyone else actively taking orders. Yosh are you still doing it?

I am in California.

Also, for the LCD screen. I see that some of these LED's may work. Does anyone know which one in particular will work, i know it needs to be T4 and not 12v.

Neowedge Instrument Panel Gauge Colored Led Bulbs Lights Lamps | Autolumination

Wow!! Hella gravedigging on this post haha! Been a min! Get this done tho, it was my favorite upgrade I did in my 4G! It COMPLETELY changes the look and feel inside! My buddy did mine and it seemed super simple! Granted it was about 14 years ago haha! The ac and temp knobs are super simple too! You will love it for sure!

Hey man! I have not tried these, but I think they may work on the 6v. Not 100% on that Instrument Panel Gauge Dashboard Colored Led Bulbs Lights Lamps go to the 33rd section down. Has an acrylic top.

I have been taking a break. Considered coming out of retirement, but COVID luckily has me working a lot. One day I’ll come back. When the mod bug starts back I may. @yosh2000 and I have helped each other at times, with either questions or customers. He may still be doing it, not sure.

Getting ready to do all of mine here soon (finally), sourcing most of my supplies from superbrightleds.com.

I hate my life, but whatever.............

In my never ending quest to have what I want, I finally got some time to rip apart the HVAC assembly that I butchered years ago. I got a doner HVAC assembly about a year or so ago b/c I knew that by completely gutting the plastic base for the lighting (in order to accomodate the LED strips I put in), I would need an untouched one. WELL, I got one from an '03 hoping it would be identical, but it wasn't. Remember that in '05, Toyota installed "smart airbags" and so the circuitry of the passenger airbag light was slightly different and so was the circuit board on which it shares with the HVAC controls. Yay (stab me in the eye please)

I want to share this with anyone who wants to tear it apart like I did. IT'S NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. Lots could (almost did) wrong.

Not going to go into how to take it the back side apart, it is self explanatory.

BUT, here is a great thread on how to do so (helped me): How to take apart the 4th gen A/C controls

After taking the backside off, you need to take off 3 screws that secure the circuit board in place. Then look to the 3 ribbon cables that need to be detached from the board. Very easy, on the sides there are locks that need to be lifted, then carefully lift the ribbon cable itself. They are very ridged, but still be careful (break these and it's game over).



Another angle


There is a ribbon cable that runs down the toward the bottom of the assembly, there are 2-3 screws that secure it. Remove them (no pics).

You will then observe the pins that run to the display screen. Yep, those pins are secured by (surrounded) white plastic that need to be dremeled out. Again, be careful, BUT they are ridged as well (I hit them with my small attachment but nothing happened. If you don't have a steady hand, don't even try this).



After dremeling the plastic tabs out of the way (took me 5 minutes), you can carefully bend the pins so that the screen can be pushed slightly aside. While doing this, the buttons of the "mode/reset" will come apart AND you need to be careful of the LEDS that are in "ridges" (on the opposite side of the clock controls) in the assembly. If you are not careful, you will rip them off the board.

After/Before


AS you can see what I did, I gutted the back side of the assembly so I could lay down some LED strips. I glued a rectangular piece of plastic (I had a ruler that was the perfect size) that I used as a based for the strips. Doing this permanently altered the assembly so I couldn't bring it back to normal.

Back side: (observe they are nearly identical, but have slightly different back side toward the passenger airbag light, I had to shave off some plastic so the white plastic wouldn't hit a chip on the board when fully installed. Also, you loose a screw that secures it to the board, no biggie really)



A look at the difference between an 03 and 05 (note the left side of the board, it is different). Also note the top one (from my 4R, the display screen is darker due to the polarization film)



when the board is laid down and screen popped in. As I mentioned, you loose a mounting screw, but it IS secure.



After you screw and tighten everything up, proceed to install stock bulbs or 12V LED (me). I got these from @Johns06yota . Practically plug n play, but do notice that the wired part of the base (LED) has a wire on it, this is the negative (99% sure). This part has to come into contact with the negative part patch of where the stock bulb goes or it won't turn on (LEDs are polar sensitive remember). I haven't reinstalled it yet, b/c my bases are covered in solder from the last time I had someone reled them. Very messy. Anyway here are some pics:



Positive/Negative:

This wire on the base is the negative:



Base polarity (this picture is before the assembly was reledded. Person who did this was very sloppy......urghhhhhh)



So to sum up, if you want to install LED strips in the back of the display, please don't. It will look like this (crap):

BARF


If you do the reverse polarization mod, be sure to get a 12V LED to light it up, b/c if not, the display will be barely noticeable during the day. I'll post pics when she is all installed and sorted out.

Not sure if you are still working this so many months later. I'll share a short story here. I found the same issue with the backlight bulbs not getting ANY juice to those twin holes with the copper pads. All of my other LEDs (a SuperBright kit) with the NEO3s worked fine once the polarity was found out.

I ended up running a hot and neutral jumper from the smaller bulb that lights the reset/mode to the twin backlight LCD bulbs. Here is where I may have gone wrong, though:

I assumed the contacts the twin bulbs touch were no longer part of any functional circuit on this board. I figured I had trashed some trace I couldn't see in my disassembly. I now have a really baked resister (R1 on the board) and noted how hot it had become one afternoon. I haven't traced the whole board (anyone have a schematic for this board from the 2003 SR5?) -- before I can put it back into service, I'll fully isolate the wiring of the twin LCD backlight LEDs -- feed them off of that reset/mode lamp.

I'm not sure what that resister does -- I suspect it did the voltage drop from 12VDC to 6VDC that may have fed the original LCD bulbs. If I have time this weekend to trace the board, I'll drop more info here.

In the interest of keeping this thread updated:

final product:



I ended up using 12v LED (white) from @Johns06yota 's LED kit. What he did was get 2 LED (3mm I think), join the positive ends with a wire and left the negative lead on the base so it makes contact with the bulb "socket" on the circuit board. Anyway, this positive wire I connected with the radio's power. They dim nicely with the rest of the dashboard lights.

Because this HVAC assembly is heavily modified, the bulb contacts had too much solder on them from the last time (5-6 years ago) so I soldered the bulbs to them and finished securing them with hot glue (easily removed).

Driving view in the sunlight.


last picture is with my windshield suncover on, but this is a huge improvement on when this was done the last time (5 years ago). The LEDs used then were amber and were bearly visible during the day. THEN, I installed LED strips and those were amber. Those results were bad, but wasn't reverseable b/c the assembly had to be dremeled to accomodate the strips. So, several months back, i got a donor HVAC to fix mine. Oh well, this is the price of "modding", right? urghhhh.

Anyway, happy with the results even though the color is a little off. Remember that white LEDs are way brighter than amber ones and the brightness is what counts when doing the reverse polarization screen mod.

final pic (with footwell LED i installed for ambient light).


Find them here: Bike LEDs | Prewired LED Modules | Super Bright, Plug and Play comes in 2 sizes and many colors available. They are perfect brightness. I even installed one inside my center console.

Did you ever figure this out? All the old links point to dead pages, and I can't figure out exactly what I need to pick up. The LEDs are now listed as 3mm, 4mm, etc and I have clue what's happening

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Hoping someone can help me with this. I saw another user with the same problem... I swapped LED in my instrument cluster and they all work, but now that I am reinstalling it, the temperature gauge has a mind of it's own. I managed to set all the other needles back to their correct position and even the temp gauge after turning the car to on, off, and letting it reset to the off positions. The temperature gauge seems to move up, then back further than the start position, and it will just repeat this and every time I turn the car from on to off, it lands in a different spot than before. Hopefully someone can assist, I have a 2004 sport edition... It doesn't look like it's stuck on the back or anything but it does not move as fluid as the other needles, it shakes forward to the on position and shakes back when off

Lots of great information, and I didn't want to start a brand new thread for this question.

So thank you for bring up the 6v vs 12v...you saved me from buying the completely wrong items.

So my plan is now to remove the HVAC console and upgrade those lights first as they don't require soldering and I'm not the best solder at all. My plan is to remove the dead and existing lights and re-use the bases for ease of fitting. Based on everything I've read, I believe that these will work:

Amazon.com: DiCUNO 1000pcs 3mm Light Emitting Diode LED Lamp Assorted Kit White Red Yellow Green Blue Lights Round Head and Clear Len Bulbs (5 Colors x 200pcs): Home Improvement

Can I just get a 2nd pair of eyes on this to verify?

Thank you,

I have to do my heater & a/c bulbs. Hopefully it will go smoothly.