ANTMAN MOD #4.1
Lighting up the FOG indicator from the FOG MOD
Well, it took all of 24 hrs, and the "Fog LED not lighting up" thing bugged me enough to do something about it. I took the dash apart -again- and buried an LED in there behind the FOG indicator. I used an orange LED, mostly because I didn't have any green available, and the electronics store is 30 mins away. What do you guys think about it? I'm not sure yet, may just throw a green one in there since all the real work is done for this...
The entire dash comes apart without any tools, except for a phillips screwdriver- thanks Toyota!
Here's what you need to pull off:
*The plastic panel where your fan switch is located
*The panel to the right of the steering column that houses the useless "party mode" button
*The panel to the left of the steering column that has your mirror controls
All of these panels pull towards you- use your muscles!- to come off
The steering column screws, under the steering wheel, need to come off and then you can pull the black plastic guage surround off. it's connected to the top of the steering column plastic with a piece of vinyl.
4 screws remove the cluster, and the plug is on top. Here's what you end up with...
The top of the cluster has molded in black plastic tabs holding it on. Simply take a small screwdriver and- patiently- work your way around the cluster to remove it.
Remember this- every time you look at your dash you will notice any dirt, dust, or fingerprints you get in here! Be careful...
I used a hobby knife to cut a slot for the LED , and it's wires. You can't access this area without removing the needles for the guages, so this was the only way to get it in there! I cleaned up this cut significantly, before I was done- forgot to take a picture...
Here's a
LINK on how to make LED's like this one that's buried in the slot. Note: The long black push-button that goes through the hole in the guage face pulls right off, and snaps back in easily. This made the job alot easeir once I figured that out
I messed around with the positioning of the LED, to try to get the lighting as even as possible.
Now everything can go back together. The ground to the LED gets connected to the ground in the FOG MOD writeup, and the hot-lead ties into relay terminal#30.
Here is the result, whenever the fogs are on...