What's involved to replace dash bulbs?

[Luni260z]

I've been searching everywhere, can't find a simple answer.

A lot of people seem to replace them when they have the dash out. Others mention pulling out the guages.

 

Help me ! I've got a few hours to kill today. (I've had some 4V globes sitting around for ages).

 

Thanks in advance.

[Scoota G]

In the 260Z take out the air vent panel and the square-ish shaped heater matrix behind it. You'll need to remove the side brackets that mount the front panel. There are 2 screw at the rear of the matrix on the top both left and right side, you only need to loosen them as the matrix only slides over them which also means that the tabs are easy to break so go slowly. Once you have that out you'll have heaps of access. Get a light and a mirror and start feelin around.

[Luni260z]

Thanks Scoota, you're a champ.

No idea what half these terms mean, but i'm sure once I get in there I'll be able to spot the heater matrix.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[Scoota G]

The heater matrix is just a rectangular shaped box behind the middle vents, despite it's complex name it's very simple.

[Scoota G]

Here's a present for you.

[Luni260z]

Finally got some action.

Wasn't sure how to get the bulbs out, ended up taking out one of the dials and realised you just yanked em out.

There weren't as many globes as I was expecting, was told by zstore that there was one for the clock, two for the amp/fuel, two for oil/water. Unless I'm missing something, they all only appear to have one glove each.

 

Now have to try to access the ones behind the speedo and tacho and starting to lose light. Oh well, wish me luck.

 

Thanks for that diagram Scoota, might be helpful when I come to putting it all back again.

[Luni260z]

Tacho is pretty much impossible to remove as best I can tell without some major work.

Speedo should come out (have taken off the front/back screws) and removed the speedo cable, but I cannot remove the Trip Reset cable (its wrapped around the heater vent and wont give me enough length to pop out the speedo. I've undone the tiny screw as best I can, still can't remove the thing.

 

Oh well, I guess I leave this project until the weekend.

 

EDIT 2:

 

Finally removed the speedo, i undid all the vent related piping which allowed a bit more room to pop the speedo out. I was then actually able to finally get the tiny screw out of the trip reset cable. And I finally got the speedo out and swapped over the four lights. (Brake, Highbeam and two others).

 

With the speedo and venting out I was finally able to get to the bulbs behind the tacho and swapped 3 of them (left/right blinker and one other). Not sure if I popped them back in the right spots (they'd been yanked out by accident when I removed the piping). Went to test it all. And the fuse is dead.

 

Oh well, Swapped globe in the glovebox. And now I just have to hope I guessed right with the indicators, replace that fuse and hope to hell it doesn't blow the second I try my lights.

 

:'(

[lightmaster240z]

Did you go with std globe or LED

[Luni260z]

Std globes. I looked at some of the threads with LED lights and figured I should go with the easier option so went with slightly higher voltage. I did recently install a parking light upgrade but hadn't noticed any real difference with the lights in the dash (which it mentioned should be brighter).

 

For some time my headlights have been dropping out. (They wouldn't work at all if I had the cover holding the wires in under the dash. I figured it was a short and never really investigated. Whilst playing around with all the wires today I noticed a spark, and the wire powering the headlights wasn't even connected, but if the wires under the steering wheel at the right position it was giving me lights because it was rubbing against its home. No wonder it was so dogdy. At least that'll be an easy fix.

 

Currently I have no indicators. I think when I was playing around with the wires under the heater unit I may have disconnected the hazard switch perhaps. I'll look again tmrw. Hoping it isn't somehow related to whatever is happening behind the tacho.

 

For now I have a fixable headlight problem.

But no lights showing on the tacho. (Fixed: the bulb had popped back out of the tacho, not sure why I couldn't see the glow in the darkness, but saw it this morning).

I have no indicators working, so not sure if I have the dash lights working for those or not.

 

The fuse that is dead appears to be for the demister. I'm going to get some replacement fuses all round, they are stupidly old.

[Luni260z]

Woohoo !! After spending every night this week with my head stuck under the dash I've finally had success with everything.

 

I removed all the dodgy unconnected wires and swapped almost every bulb in the car.

 

Hazards started working after removing dodgy wires from where my radio should be.

Indicator that wasn't working was a dodgy bulb (even though it looked legit).

Wipers turned out to the be the fuse (which also looked legit).

 

I got sparkies at work to re-solder my high beam switch and fix up a few of the dodgier looking connections.

 

Everything on my car now works (well, maybe not the rear demister, but the light for the rear demister turns on, and I think that's good enough).

 

Only thing left to fix for rego is the rust. Oh dear, the rust.

Thanks to everyone who checked out the thread to see if they could help, and especially to those who did.

 

[nizm0zed]

Good news with all the wiring!

Its very satisfying when it all works out huh.

The rego inspector wont check your demister, he'll see the light turn on and assume it works 

As for the rust, is it really obvious?

I had some on mine when i went to rego it at first, ended up just sanding the rough stuff off and wacking some paint over it to pass rego, if it looks ok, they wont bother with it.

 

[Luni260z]

Good news with all the wiring!

Its very satisfying when it all works out huh.

The rego inspector wont check your demister, he'll see the light turn on and assume it works 

As for the rust, is it really obvious?

I had some on mine when i went to rego it at first, ended up just sanding the rough stuff off and wacking some paint over it to pass rego, if it looks ok, they wont bother with it.

 

Behind the passenger door there's a rust hole that you could easily put two fingers into. Then there's rust on pretty much every panel. I'll get someone to look at it soon.

 

First up I'm swapping the diff. Then ill see what happens from there.

[Scoota G]

Behind the passenger door there's a rust hole that you could easily put two fingers into. Then there's rust on pretty much every panel. I'll get someone to look at it soon.

 

First up I'm swapping the diff. Then ill see what happens from there.

Dog legs hey? Can often be worse on the PS as that old battery acid worked it's way down in the early 80's.