How to: LED Climate control and Brake Light

Status
Not open for further replies.

Black Magic

I'm Rick James, b***h
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
Hello everyone,

I wanted to do these two mods for a while and since I recently finished my exams I've finally had the time. I couldn't find any DIY's so I decided to quickly make one.


What you'll need:

- flat head screw driver
- philips screw driver
- electrical wire
- led strips (I bought mine here: http://www.lck-led.com/p102/New-12"-Flexible-Red-LED-Strip/product_info.html)
- about an hour of your time
- some patience


Climate Controls

I did this mod because the stock light doesn't match well with my Si cluster which lights up red. I couldn't live with this =)

1) Pop out the hazard signal and the rear defrost switches. Use a flat head screwdriver to pry them out and be careful not to wreck your dash.






2) When they are out, remove unplug the harness. You can see that there is a golden philps screw behind each switch. Take them out.







3) Remove the two golden screws under your centre panel.





4) Remove this screw in the glove box





5) Push the glove box in to bypass the rubber stopper





6) Remove the black screw at the bottom





7) Move to the other side of the dash and remove the panel under the steering wheel. There are three golden philips screws you need to remove







8) There are two additional screws on each side of the centre panel. remove them and the panel should become loose. Also unplug the cigarette lighter.





9) Remove all of the plugs for your radio/head unit and remove it completely.

10) There are 3 screws under the climate control panel you need to remove. here is one of them. The other two are closer to the front, they're tough to see.





11) This part is a little tricky. There are 4 screws (2 on each side) behind the climate control panel. Remove all 4.

12) Remove the centre console. there are a few clips so you'll have to CAREFULLY pry it out





13.1) These are the 4 screws i was referring to in step 11.





13.2) Remove both knobs for the climate control





14) Turn the climate control upside down and remove these three golden philips screws





15) Carefully pop off the black plastic cover plate





16) Pull out the stock bulbs





17) Cut off one of the bulbs (as close to the bulb as you can get)





18) Strip the wire. You need to be very careful and get it right the first time since the wire is extremely short





19) Take out your LED strip and cut one end off so it fits





20) Use some electrical wire to connect the led strip to the wires you stripped in step 18 (you'll have to use tiral and error to figure out which one is positive and negative)





21) Test your led strip to make sure it works before you put everything back together. Make sure its plugged in! I forgot to plug it in (I don't know why i even unplugged it in the first place), and when i turned on my headlights and it wasn't working I was all like "WTF".





22) Put everything back follow the instructions backwards





23) DONE!

















Brake Light

The only reason I even did this simple mod was b/c I have to remove my stock brake light to mount my subs. I think its illegal not to have one, so I did this in case.


1) Remove the rear panel. Mine was already off because I'm working on mounting my subs back there. Its pretty easy to take off. There's the child seat hinge that you need to remove with a socket wrench and then the rest are just clips that need to be popped out.


2) Remove the stock brake light


3) You can see the harness of the brake light in this pic





4) Strip the wires from the LED strip and the wire that you'll need to connect the led strip to the brake light harness







5) Simply mount the led strip where ever you want using the provided mounting clips. Since my subs will be taking up pretty much all the room on the panel, I mounted my led strip on the top of the windshield





6) Connect the wires into the harness







7) Test to make sure the led strip lights up when you apply the brake. If it does hide the wiring from the LED strip to the brake light harness.







8) Replace your rear panel

9) DONE!













I also ended up replacing my dome light with an LED one:






All in all, I'm pleased with the way both mods came out - as simple as they may be. The brake light looks a little shitty, but oh well. I might make a small panel for it or something later on. I'm also gonna have to put LED's in my cluster too because now the climate control is brighter. I hope this DIY is of use to a curious mind out there!
 

killthisish

OMG LOL!
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
Nice writeup! Very easy to follow.
 


Black Magic

I'm Rick James, b***h
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
Thanks man :cool:


Added on June 4, 2009.

License plate LED lights

1) Remove the two screws for each license plate light and unplug the harness






2) Take the plastic cover off and remove the rubber surrounding it. Clean the clear plastic in soapy water.








3) Cut your LED strips to the correct size (should be same length as the plastic cover). Test the strips to figure out the positive and negative terminals.






4) Another option (instead of using LED strips is to simply replace the halogen bulb with an LED one. Since LED's are directional unlike halogen bulbs, I decided to use strips instead.




5) Connect male disconnects to the LED strips and plug them into the stock harness.






6) Re-attach the rubber to the plastic cover. I used a hot glue gun to keep the LED strips attached to the clear plastic. Finally, screw your new license plate lights back into your trunk lid.








7) All done!



 

oddeb707

R.I.P Stephen Jackson
Registered VIP
Registered OG
5+ Year Member
10+ Year Member
nice write up
 


Genuine Rolla

Its PETEY PETE, y0!
Registered VIP
Registered OG
5+ Year Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Very nice write up broski...!

:thumbs up

Moved to Interior How-To.
 

Black Magic

I'm Rick James, b***h
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
Thanks, its pretty straight forward, but I thought I'd do one anyways.
 

Genuine Rolla

Its PETEY PETE, y0!
Registered VIP
Registered OG
5+ Year Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
thats all a write up needs to be. Straight forward and easy to understand.
 

AllStockHatch

Unregistered User
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
10+ Year Member
Looking good. Thinking about doing a couple of those. Thanks man.
 

Black Magic

I'm Rick James, b***h
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
could u do the climate control on a 99 with same write up?
Since the climate control on 99-00 Civics is different, the method for swapping in LED's is most likely different as well. I think the centre control panel is also removed the same way, though.

The climate control in 92-95 Civics is almost identical so you can also do this in an eg but the process of removing it will be different.
 

prophetofsin

New Member
5+ Year Member
great writeup. I just finished LED-ing my Climate control and Gauges. (RED)

Something not mentioned in the writeup is when you take the climate control out, there is a wire connected to the Cold-Hot Temperature knob.

I wasn't able to remove the wire, so I was lieing on my back for the most part trying to splice the wires. There was also a lot of grease under the climate control. It worked out well though, and this writeup helped a lot.

My gauge lighting isn't that great, I probably will take it out again tomorrow and work on it.
 

Black Magic

I'm Rick James, b***h
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
great writeup. I just finished LED-ing my Climate control and Gauges. (RED)

Something not mentioned in the writeup is when you take the climate control out, there is a wire connected to the Cold-Hot Temperature knob.

I wasn't able to remove the wire, so I was lieing on my back for the most part trying to splice the wires. There was also a lot of grease under the climate control. It worked out well though, and this writeup helped a lot.

My gauge lighting isn't that great, I probably will take it out again tomorrow and work on it.
Yeah, you're right, I must have missed that when I was writing it up... sorry. There actually is a way to take it off, you just need a pair of pliers. Its a pain in the ass to get back on properly, so I left mine on while I put the LED's in. I remember that the cord was long enough to do it while seated in the driver's seat if I flipped the climate control upside down.

hope this helps! and again, sorry for missing that step.
 

prophetofsin

New Member
5+ Year Member
I remember that the cord was long enough to do it while seated in the driver's seat if I flipped the climate control upside down.
Wow, that's pretty long. I think the previous owner of my civic had the aircon fixed, and there was literally no slack on the black wire at all. I had to take out the 4 screws of the center console connecting climate control with my hands inside the radio din pocket and under the climate control turning the screwdriver. And as I mentioned, I had to lie down on the seats and look up just to slice the wires. At least it isn't like that for anyone else.

Great writeup as I mentioned before. Very easy to do. Just don't forget to keep track of the screws you remove from the dash pieces. ^^
 

4bangincivic

sup
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
bump! nice write up, im thinking soon of converting all of my brake lights in led with led circut boards
 

Black Magic

I'm Rick James, b***h
Registered VIP
5+ Year Member
Thanks everyone

bump! nice write up, im thinking soon of converting all of my brake lights in led with led circut boards
I want to do the exact same thing! I want to convert my tail lights to led's using a pc board and making the pattern myself. Unfortunately I didn't have time this past summer so it'll have to wait.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


Top