Guage Light Question Options

[Nick205]

So tonight one of the bulbs behind my guages went out and I have a few questions. What type bulb do I replace it with? I did some research and think it is a Type 194 but I'm not positive. Also if I want to upgrade to indiglo guages do I still need to get a new bulb or do they use a differnet type of lighting/bulb?

[pyeatts]

http://www.sylvania.com/ConsumerProducts/A...placementGuide/

This will tell you every lamp in your car!

[richee3]

Definitely a type 194. While you are replacing that one bulb, why don't you buy some colored LED's and replace all three of your gauge bulbs with those? It makes a nice custom touch in the car, and looks worlds better than the nasty seafoam green that Toyota used.

[Nick205]

Ok thanks guys. I'm definately replacing all three bulbs while I'm in there. Not sure which color yet but your right I can't stand that ugly green.

[Nick205]

One last question. If I put LED lights in do I have to wire them differently or are they just a direct swap from the OEM lights?

[richee3]

Most of them should be a direct swap. It's pretty likely that if you're buying a type 194 LED that there is already a resistor built in so you will be able to plug and play. However, if you buy LED's, make sure they spread light evenly around 360* or else you're going to have very bright spots in one part of your gauge and almost nothing in another part.

[delusionz]

Yah, Top half of the speedometer is dim with 180 deg lights

Rest is fine. Not soo bad with an automatic since they use 2 194's and 2 74's

360 deg SMT is the way to go - just gotta get ones that are slim enough to poke through the hole.

[Nick205]

Ok thanks for the help guys

[trdproven]

with LED bulbs you might have to switch around the bulb if it doesn't turn on. you might have to do this a few times for the 3 bulbs so I suggest you just plug in the left blue harness when testing instead of plugging in all three, it becomes a hassle. But even with regular colored bulbs, they have dark spots no matter what but I think LEDs have more of this problem than reg bulbs. On another forum, I saw that they sand down the LED bulb all the way down to its filament (not sure what LEDs) are called, but this is to show more light. Do not get 1 directional LEDs, get the LEDs that look like regular bulbs so the light spreads out. If you get the ones that point in one direction, then you will have a darkspot problem.

[SinisterSinner]

mines I remade them with LEDs and are direct swap, also if you dont like the green they are actually white covered by a green rubber thing, just pull it off and pput the bulb back in, and it will look a lot brighter but just while...,

[trdproven]

here this will give you an exact idea, these are good value bulbs and they cover all around. Compared to regular LED bulbs, these corrected my dead spots.

http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/CornerS...481059-1-2.html