Hey Buggman , I have a 1999 mazda and have a cluster light burned out. How much for 6 or 7 of those blue LEDs that will fit?

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1999 Mazda B4000
Extended Cab
4.0L Automatic
Keyless entry added
Throttle Mod
Yakima Tailgate Pad, 4-Pin towing lights, Bed liner

Right now I have cluster led's for the old & new style clusters in Red, White, Blue & a few Green.

HVAC led's for the old & new style hvac panels, same colors as above.

Dome light led's for the standard 3 bulb bubble shaped dome lights, smaller rectangular single bulb domes & mustang dome lights.

Headlight, 4x4 & fog switch led mods for the classic style switches. Can do them in red, white, blue, green, yellow & orange. I may not have all colors made up but I can generally mod them in a day or so depending on my health & the weather.

3rd brake light plug-in led's for all red & cargo lights.

License plate led's.

Glovebox & under hood led's.

LED strips in a few colors that I can cut to nearly any length in about 2" increments.

LED stuff I can do but may not have completed at the moment:
3rdBL full led conversions,

OHC full led conversion boards,

Brake/Turn/Reverse LED's (had TONS of issues with suppliers of good led arrays to mod & don't have any to mod as of now, but I'm still looking)

Probably more stuff that I'm forgetting about

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Could be the led's aren't making good contact inside the bulb holders or the bulb holders aren't making good contact with the hvac panel connectors.

Could also be the led's themselves. I've heard stories where some get extremely hot (and have experienced this myself using certain led's) to the point where they literally melt the led's off of the circuit boards
If that's the case, the only option is to toss 'em for something new before they short out completely.

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So, how can I get a ohc led conversion?

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1999 Ford Ranger EXT Cab 3.0 4x4|Toreador Red|Fog lights in grill|K&N Drop In Filter|Throttle Body Spacer|2.5 Inch Dynomax Turbo SS Exhaust Cat-Back|Pro Comp 15x8 Rims|31x10.5 Pro Comp Tires|Clear Black Tails|Clear Front Signals|OHC Install|Explorer Center Console|Bucket Seats|

1999 Ford Ranger XLT 4 Banger 5 Speed|Full Tune Up|2/3 IN Drop|Front And Rear Light Tint|Konig Tremor 17X8 Rims|Thrush Turbo Muffler|DJM Calmax Shocks|Coil Pack Mod|03 Front End Conversion|8000k Hids

So I've got a 2000 ranger with no tach. You know how many I would need to do my gage cluster red? Also wondering if it will still be bright(my buddy got blue generic ones an at night you can't even read anything)

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2000 ford ranger v6 3.0 long bed single cab
30" BFG all terrains, ultra Motorsports rims,3" spindle lift
Bedlinered bumpers and grill and misc parts
Neoprene seat covers, carpeted, Alpine deck, pioneer speakers, Led underglow inside & more

Drop me a PM & we'll discuss.
I don't have any complete at the moment, but as soon as the weather warms up I'll be finishing some.

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Do you have the older style cluster similar to my 96:



or do you have the newer style cluster?

The older clusters use 6x of my 5smd led's while the newer style clusters use 5x of my 1smd led's.

To change the cluster to red, you'll need to do a bit of modding to remove the oem color filtering on the back of the gauge overlays to allow the new led color to shine through properly.
The stock filtering will pretty much kill any light output of any colored led's except for white.

Also if you have red needles, colored led's (except for white) will generally not light up your red needles very well. Red led's may be different, but the green & blue led's tend to make the red needles very dim.
If you have the whiteish needles, any color led should light them up quite well.

My led's are also dimmable using the stock dimmer control too.... although I don't know why anyone would want to turn down all that led goodness

Feel free to check out my cluster pics HERE where I have pics of some of the forum members who are using my led's in their clusters.

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Thanks for the reply, I have the exact gauge that is in your first picture in the link with no tach. So what modding is involved to make it to where I can use red LEDs and have it shine trough with a bright red?

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2000 ford ranger v6 3.0 long bed single cab
30" BFG all terrains, ultra Motorsports rims,3" spindle lift
Bedlinered bumpers and grill and misc parts
Neoprene seat covers, carpeted, Alpine deck, pioneer speakers, Led underglow inside & more

OK,
Once you have the cluster out of the dash, you'll need to remove the clear front cover.
Once the cover is off, you'll need to carefully remove the needles and later recalibrate them after modding.
Next you'll need to remove the gauge overlays from the cluster.

Mark out the areas you want to remove the color filtering from (here's a link to some cluster pics & some overlays I've sanded).
Lightly wet sand the color filtering off using 400+wet dry sandpaper & water.
Hold a flashlight up to the overlays from the back side to make sure all the color is gone & that it's opaque.
Reinstall the overlays & needles, calibrate the needles & install the clear cover & dash.

Then your colored led's will shine through without being blocked by the stock filtering.

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Awesome! Thanks for the info I will Forsure be ordering some LEDs when I get around to modding the cluster. Thanks again!

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2000 ford ranger v6 3.0 long bed single cab
30" BFG all terrains, ultra Motorsports rims,3" spindle lift
Bedlinered bumpers and grill and misc parts
Neoprene seat covers, carpeted, Alpine deck, pioneer speakers, Led underglow inside & more

Do you have any of the red ones left? I bought some cheap ones and they aren't bright at all... : /

I do have the 5smd & 1smd's in red, also have blue, green & yellow.

Did you sand the oem color filtering off the back of your gauge overlays? If not, even the brightest colored led's will look dim & blotchy.

White led's behind the stock filtering will shine through just fine, but when using red, blue, green, yellow, etc led's without removing the color filtering will all tend to look ugly

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I didn't sand it. I was just going to be cheap and try to throw some red(painted) thin plastic behind it and let the plastic make the "red" lights but I couldn't figure out how to get behind the gauge overlays. So I just put the LEDs in. Tested it before I put everything back together. I had to mess with a few of them to get them to light up. I thought they would be brighter because I was doing it during the day. I put everything back together. Then pulled if into the garage with no lights on and was disappointed with how dim they were.

Yeah, unfortunately without sanding off the color filtering any colored is probably gonna look like poo.

There's a how-to here on adjusting the odometer that has a lot of the steps to remove the cluster & overlays & how to calibrate the needles after the mod.
Basically you'll need to remove the needles & the overlays to get to the back of the overlays to wet sand the color filtering off.



Once you have the filtering removed you can even use white led's alone to give you a white dash like this one:


One of these days when I have time, I'm going to do a how-to video on my YouTube channel on how to remove the overlays & remove the filtering.

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How many LEDs behind the cluster? I wana do all blue but make 5&6k rpms red and 90-120mph red.

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2020 KW T800
Quad Axle Dump Truck
MX13 PACAR I6
The Lone Ranger

buggman, I have about $25 in my PayPal and I'm wondering what I can get for that much. Let me know!

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-Link-

If your cluster is like my 96:


You'll have 6x bulbs that can be replaced with my 5smd led's.

Unfortunately to change certain areas different colors will require hand placed & hand soldered led's onto the back of the gauge pods... way more work & expense than most people are willing to do & past most people's abilities too
It can be done, I've done some testing with old clusters & came up with some pretty cool stuff, but it would be insanely expensive as you'd need a donor cluster to mod while driving around with your stock cluster, not to mention the numerous hours of labor involved.

The way the back lighting is on the clusters, each bulb will have a diffuser above it that spreads light to certain areas... so ford can use 6 bulbs instead of 20 bulbs to light up everything relatively well.

A less expensive alternative would be to sand the back of the overlays removing all the stock color filtering & paint the areas you want particular colors using duplicolor metalcast spray paint. Then you could use white led's to illuminate everything evenly & the red/blue/green/pink/whatever colors. A lot less work, but it may not give the absolute best results.

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Why good sir, you can get a cool $25 worth of led's for that HA!

Seriously though, what do you need, want or can't live without?

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