A Car Called Bob... Blue Dash
Home | Gallery | Darkside | Hood Replacement | Blue Dash | MG Forums |
   

Changing The Lighting - Centre Console heater Controls

| Heater Controls | Clock / Oil Temp Gauges | Instrument Pack | Switches | Head Unit |

 

First, take the centre centre console off. Remove the heater knobs using string to get behind the knobs, one bit each side of the knob, gently pull the knobs off. Be sure to note the position of the knobs first! Once they are off, it will look a bit like this...
 
 
 

You can see through the holes of the fan speed setting dial and the blower direction dial (on the right) that there are two philips head screws. You can just about get a screwdriver through the holes and undo the screws. The white box behind the dials will then come away from the rest of the heater control unit, and you can then remove the plastic cover which has the three holes in it. The next shot shows the white box in situ with the plastic trim still in place
 
 
 
The unit can now be removed, after unplugging the power to the existing bulbs.Back in the house, I examined the heater trim:
 
 
 
On the back of the trim, which is thin plastic, there are orange coloured decals over each symbol. These need rubbingoff with a suitable peice of emery paper or what I used which was a nail file board. BE VERY CAREFUL! It is easy to rub the black off from around the symbols, thus losing their shape. As you can see in the pic below, I had to go around the symbols with black marker to restore the shapes. I also painted the back of the plastic white to try to reflect some of the light from the LEDs to compensate for their narrower field of view.
 
 
 

The LEDs including the shunt resistor were soldered onto the back of the circuit board where the original bulbs (below) contacted the board. Note you can get direct replacement Slim Wedge bulbs from ultraleds.co.uk.
 
 
 

The LEDs were poked through the bulb holes and angled up and outwards as in the pic below.

 
 
Everything was rebuilt....
 
 
 
And this is the result!
 
 
 

| Images and Text © 2006 Iain Ross |

I accept NO responsibility if you attempt any of the mods on this site. If you mess it up - its your fault!