Question About Instrument Lighting

[simified]

I bought a 95 Explorer XLT second hand and it has a lot of issues. At night a lot of the instruments that I would think should light up, don't. I found a few reference pics on the internet and circled the ones I am talking about....the switch for the lights, rear defroster, rear wiper, and fog lights. Are all of these supposed to light up at night when in use? If so are the bulbs replaceable?

 

[vroomzoomboom]

yes, they are suppose to light up, but only when the head lights are on, as well as your cruise control switches. the head light switch light will be on when the ignition is on regardless if lights are on or not. i cant remember if you can buy just the bulbs separate or not. some members, as well as myself have changed them to led lights. the plus side is they last longer (mine are going on 5 years now), but it does take some work to do them.
here is a good write up on how to do them

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/296394/2002-ford-ranger-regular-cab/page-6/

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/296394/2002-ford-ranger-regular-cab/page-12/

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/296394/2002-ford-ranger-regular-cab/page-23/

 

[koda2000]

the rear wiper bulb is a strange looking thing. i got a replacement bulb from a spare switch i had. the fog light and rear defroster switches take a size T4 bulb. someone said you could get them at Radio Shack (?) but i know you can buy them on-line from www.autolumination.com the colors aren't right, but they do work and you have your choice of LED or standard bulbs. you have to remove the radio bezel, switches and then take them out of the switch housing to change the bulbs. if you want to replace the headlight switch bulb, i'd either put in an LED or just ignore it. it's a lot of work to get that switch out and the bulb never lasts, as it's always on. your HVAC switches should also light up. i think the manuals take a 168 bulb and the EATC buttons take one bulb to light up two buttons (T4's i think). the switches on the steering wheel are supposed to light up, but if you have the soft cover switches you can't change the bulb, because it's sealed inside the switch. not sure about the hard button switches.

 

[simified]

Thank you gentlemen! Yeah it does seem like a bit of work to do an LED conversion but I'm actually pretty good with soldering small things like that. I did forget to mention the cruise control switches...the right side lights up while the left doesn't. Since I do have a Radio Shack by me and have the day off Saturday I'm going to stop there and see if I can get a few 5mm blue LED's and some 470 1/4 watt resistors. I'll let you both know how it turns out.

 

[bobflood]

Thank you gentlemen! Yeah it does seem like a bit of work to do an LED conversion but I'm actually pretty good with soldering small things like that.

No need for any soldering. Use the online site koda referenced and just buy the LEDs in the proper mountings. +1 on his comment about the headlight switch illumination - just not worth the trouble. Good luck.

 

[koda2000]

just keep in mind that LED's are diodes. that means the they only allow power to flow in one direction. if they don't light when you first install them, turn them around 180 degrees in their socket. so be sure to test them before you button everything back up.

 

[FIND]

It took me only a couple minutes to switch those to LEDs. The only downside I would present from a switch to LEDs is that the color will not match the rest of the interior lighting as well, and changing it all is significant amount of work, especially with the cluster and HVAC panel, where by nature they will be very difficult to match the colors of the rest of them, since you need to use white lighting through a filter, unless you make custom arrays that would involve a far more significant amount of work than is worth it if you are just looking for functionality.

 

[koda2000]

pretty much no matter which way you go you're not going to match the color. Ford used bulbs with rubber covers (aka mouse condoms) which provide the green color. if you're really luck you may be able to remove the covers from your old standard bubls and transfer them to the new ones, but i haven't been able to successfully do this. even though the new bulbs are available in a variety of colors (ie green, blue) they all project as white through the switches.