LED conversion
Discussion
Well having seen a few people change the interior instrument colour and having lots of info from SturdyHSV I thought I would make an attempt at it.
Then promptly gave up as I don't have the patience of a zen master.
So cue lots of googling. Any amount of people that will do it for £180 on a Focus or Astra but ask them to do it on a monaro and they chicken out.
Finally found someone who would do it and waiting for them to quote for it. My thoughts were slightly more unusual so between £300-£400. Nope came back with £800+ VAT then parts. So as near as makes no difference a grand.
So anyone know anybody that is willing to do this at a reasonable price? Will travel anywhere between Aberdeen and London.
Then promptly gave up as I don't have the patience of a zen master.
So cue lots of googling. Any amount of people that will do it for £180 on a Focus or Astra but ask them to do it on a monaro and they chicken out.
Finally found someone who would do it and waiting for them to quote for it. My thoughts were slightly more unusual so between £300-£400. Nope came back with £800+ VAT then parts. So as near as makes no difference a grand.
So anyone know anybody that is willing to do this at a reasonable price? Will travel anywhere between Aberdeen and London.
TheLostProphet said:
Well having seen a few people change the interior instrument colour and having lots of info from SturdyHSV I thought I would make an attempt at it.
Then promptly gave up as I don't have the patience of a zen master.
So cue lots of googling. Any amount of people that will do it for £180 on a Focus or Astra but ask them to do it on a monaro and they chicken out.
Finally found someone who would do it and waiting for them to quote for it. My thoughts were slightly more unusual so between £300-£400. Nope came back with £800+ VAT then parts. So as near as makes no difference a grand.
So anyone know anybody that is willing to do this at a reasonable price? Will travel anywhere between Aberdeen and London.
I would imagine they've looked up the price of a replacement cluster and any GM required tinkering for it to play nice should they break yours, and then put a few hundred quid of labour on top of that!Then promptly gave up as I don't have the patience of a zen master.
So cue lots of googling. Any amount of people that will do it for £180 on a Focus or Astra but ask them to do it on a monaro and they chicken out.
Finally found someone who would do it and waiting for them to quote for it. My thoughts were slightly more unusual so between £300-£400. Nope came back with £800+ VAT then parts. So as near as makes no difference a grand.
So anyone know anybody that is willing to do this at a reasonable price? Will travel anywhere between Aberdeen and London.
That is a scary amount of money though.
You may be able to find someone who doesn't specialise in car related stuff who will be much cheaper if you basically take the bits apart and send them through for them to do, as I'm sure KMud will attest to, it's not actually a difficult process, just slow and a bit fiddly (he has done a tidier job on some of the bits than I did)
Really it's just the gauge cluster that's the long one, the other bits, again although fiddly, you could knock out in an evening or two.
hi mate, I'd be happy to give you a hand to do it sometime, no charge except for parts. I've done a couple of astras in the the past - you just need time, a steady hand and a magnifying glass usually. I'll look into whats needed re parts etc but tbh it shouldn't be more than 5-10 quids worth of leds from ebay. Any idea of what colour you fancy doing it? Was talking to Emma about this last night as she fancies doing hers - that might be a job for next time she's up here for a few days.
Never thought of stripping it and posting it somewhere. The only problem is I can't have my car sitting in pieces as I need it quite a bit.
Can sometimes be without it for a week or so but thats when im busy and away somewhere so unable to do anything lol.
Got a holiday in october for 10 days so been even looking at leaving it with someone that long so that can work on it slow time if its easier.
Can sometimes be without it for a week or so but thats when im busy and away somewhere so unable to do anything lol.
Got a holiday in october for 10 days so been even looking at leaving it with someone that long so that can work on it slow time if its easier.
As Sturdy said, it's the cluster that's challenging - getting the fragile LCD screens out takes some doing. I did a practice (VY) cluster before moving onto my proper one, and was very glad for the trial run. It's easy to fire them up on a bench, so the practice one never even got plugged into a car.
You could always send them to Bohnman customs in the US, he must have done hundreds of GTOs.
You could always send them to Bohnman customs in the US, he must have done hundreds of GTOs.
Well_Fans said:
hi mate, I'd be happy to give you a hand to do it sometime, no charge except for parts. I've done a couple of astras in the the past - you just need time, a steady hand and a magnifying glass usually. I'll look into whats needed re parts etc but tbh it shouldn't be more than 5-10 quids worth of leds from ebay. Any idea of what colour you fancy doing it? Was talking to Emma about this last night as she fancies doing hers - that might be a job for next time she's up here for a few days.
That would be brilliant mate. Got the LEDs already except the footwell. Wasn't sure what I needed for that. I'm copying everyone else and going blue. Standard rules apply so what is your drink of choice? Saw she was up but I couldn't make it over last night.KMud said:
As Sturdy said, it's the cluster that's challenging - getting the fragile LCD screens out takes some doing. I did a practice (VY) cluster before moving onto my proper one, and was very glad for the trial run. It's easy to fire them up on a bench, so the practice one never even got plugged into a car.
You could always send them to Bohnman customs in the US, he must have done hundreds of GTOs.
Yeah the cluster does look a pig of a job from the pictures. Will keep Bohnman in mind as a back up plan. Thanks mate.You could always send them to Bohnman customs in the US, he must have done hundreds of GTOs.
Well_Fans, if you need any info from me feel free to get in touch, I think I've sent TLP most of my pictures etc. from the job, I did it having never done any soldering before beyond joining about 4 pieces of wire together once (and making a mess of that... 
)
Unless you're very good with a solder sucker, get a good amount of solder braid!
TLP, the car runs fine without all this stuff connected, so you could easily give Well_fans the buttons / headlight etc. to get those done, then perhaps the gauge cluster at a separate time, again, car runs without it, sat nav for a speedo and away you go!
)Unless you're very good with a solder sucker, get a good amount of solder braid!
TLP, the car runs fine without all this stuff connected, so you could easily give Well_fans the buttons / headlight etc. to get those done, then perhaps the gauge cluster at a separate time, again, car runs without it, sat nav for a speedo and away you go!
KMud said:
A solder sucker is great for the LCD screens, just pop it over the pin, heat with a narrow-tipped soldering iron (I was at ~430' for those IIRC), and suck the solder out in one (hopefully!). I only resorted to solder braid for the occasional difficult customer 
If you can get this method to work then that will save a LOT of time EmmaJ said:
Couldn't we club together and buy a 2nd hand cluster from one of our friendly breakers and then do a post and return service?
I'm not sure how much we know about cluster swap-ability between different cars and different models?I'm not really confident enough in the quality of my workmanship to offer this kind of thing as a paid for service, and it takes me a little bit too long to offer it for free and get loads of them queued up!
SturdyHSV said:
EmmaJ said:
Couldn't we club together and buy a 2nd hand cluster from one of our friendly breakers and then do a post and return service?
I'm not sure how much we know about cluster swap-ability between different cars and different models?I'm not really confident enough in the quality of my workmanship to offer this kind of thing as a paid for service, and it takes me a little bit too long to offer it for free and get loads of them queued up!
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