Technical Instrument Cluster Backlight

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Technical Instrument Cluster Backlight

mkbojan

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Hello everyone!

I have a 2000 Fiat Brava 1.2 16v and I think it's about time to replace the instrument cluster backlight bulbs as the light is dimmer in some areas. Although it seems like a fairly simple job, I still have a few questions, mainly:
- What size are the bulbs?
- How many of them are there (counting only the backlight bulbs, without the warning lights)
- Since I plan on getting LED bulbs, is the instrument cluster layered with a green tint that gives out the green color, in which case I can just get white LEDs or is it clear in which case I should get green ones, I'm guessing the former but just to be sure.

Since I already opened the topic about the bulbs, what size bulbs are used in the ash tray and climate control illumination?

Thanks in advance! :)
 
Same bulbs in all, T5 1.2W, leds wont work as most T5 leds only shine straight and cluster/controls use light pipes and fibres on the side of bulb.
Not sure about ashtray.
Bulb count depends on round/half moon cluster, about 10, but reserve atleast 16 if you want to also replace ones in the climate controls, parking light indicator is usually also burnt but who needs it really.

Edit, round dials only seems to have five. And same for later half moons, only real early ones seemed to have all bulbs
 
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Thank you for the reply.

I forgot to mention that the dials are indeed the full moon ones.
After seeing some pictures online of the back of the instrument cluster I see that the plastics of the bulbs are different colors as seen in the attached picture. Is there any real meaning to this? Safe to just pull out and replace every bulb in the instrument cluster? Sorry for the newbie questions :)
 

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Thank you for the reply.

I forgot to mention that the dials are indeed the full moon ones.
After seeing some pictures online of the back of the instrument cluster I see that the plastics of the bulbs are different colors as seen in the attached picture. Is there any real meaning to this? Safe to just pull out and replace every bulb in the instrument cluster? Sorry for the newbie questions :)
Red and black ones are lights, bottom black is odometer, top black no idea. The two other are abs/airbag, colors don't mean much, mine were blue/black on half moon. Only consistent is the yellow abs/airbag, don't touch it.
Actually found picture of the insides so you can see how the light pipes are fitted.

5.jpg

As you can see, straight facing leds do not work.
 
I see, I guess I will replace all red and black ones then. Thanks for the help, I'll be sure to do a before and after when I replace them in a few days.
 
If you have the time, you could add it as a guide 😁
It actually is there. I think it is originally from the fiatboo guides

Edit:
Also the centre dash, it is from fiatboo as I remember following that guide from there.
 
Turns out the lights aren't replaceable like in the guide, in my case the plastic bulb holder and the bulb itself are fused together and cannot be separated (unless you rip it apart like I did..)

I went to a few different places but none had the 1.2W versions only 1.5W and above..
 
Shops here sell ten packs, philips 12516cp. You can also get it with the holder, search for "Bx8,5d" "Bx8,4d" "Bx8,3d", I'd take example with me when buying replacement.
 
Ah, thank you! Whilst searching for Bx8,5d a result came up from a local store. I'm gonna go have a look there tomorrow. I also noticed that a little ant has gotten in and died in the cluster somehow.. wonder how I'll get that sorted because I know it's gonna bug me. :)
 
Took apart one of my spare cluster lights, you have to pop up the metal part and to install normal T5 you had to cut the insides a bit to fit it deep enough.

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Now that I see how the bulbs should look I notice that the ones that another shop gave me are way off, almost twice as long. Luckily they were pretty cheap. I'll just get the ones that come with the holders so it's just plug and play.
I'll update tomorrow, hopefully with good news.
 
These are the ones I have:
Left one is the factory bulb, the one that essentially got ripped out
Right one is the replacements that I bought that ended up not fitting
And finally at the end is the plastic holder.

Hopefully I will find a use for these bulbs somewhere else in the car haha.
 

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Well, I got some good news and some bad news. The difference is pretty noticeable. But there is one light that now seems to work too well...

Help? Is there any way to "reset" it? Through either a computer or some other way (maybe unplugging the battery?)
 

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You pulled the cluster with battery plugged in? You need MES or something to reset it.
I always disconnected battery and waited half an hour before disconnecting anything.
 
Because it took so long I had to move the car.. and yeah I totally forgot about the airbag thing. No worries though I went to a Fiat mechanic and he took care of it in 5 mins. I finished replacing all the plastics and greasing up the air vent flap mechanism so there are no rattles while driving and am happy to say everything is fine now :) You've been a huge help through this, I can't thank you enough.

Just curious if you know though, is replacing the air mixing vent motor a dash out job? I'm getting mixed answers from a few places.
 
You mean the auto AC? Atleast here the actuator is kinda visible when going through the drivers footwell but never tried as mine works.
I've replaced the recirculation flap motor with RC servo to open and close it as original one ate the gears.
Not much space there.
 
Yup that, the one I have now is just dead I think, no reaction from it whatsoever. For a year now I've just disconnected the motor and changed the flap manually for winter and summer. The only broken thing I could see is the little gears that connect the motor with the flap mechanism.. I've thought about maybe somehow gluing the broken piece of the gears that are stuck in the flap mechanism with the ones from the new motor and calling it a day since it doesn't endure much stress either way.

I'll shop around some auto electricians and see what they think about that idea lol
 
So you are sure it is the gears? I bought a spare parts marea with faulty AC, ended up just being the power feed to the blower motor not giving 12v, but previous owner had disconnected the speed control module, which resulted in the AC unit not changing the mixing valve as it was in fault state. (to drive the car to my place I just wired 12V from the cig lighter to the blower, but could not change the temperature).
The workshop manual shows it and it doesnt look too complex, might even be possible to replace it with RC servo by removing the control board and adding resistors to the motor feed so it doesnt spin too fast. Getting the servo pot to correct ratio might be a hassle. For the recirculation flap I added attiny13a micro to control it based on the polarity fed to the original control wires.
1648409522066.png
 
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