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Good Morning Everyone,

Recently I purchased a 2002 Civic EX 2 dr with a D17A2. The one thing I don't like about the car is the orange illuminated cluster/orange odometer display as well as the orange illuminated dash lights (climate control, fan speed, window buttons etc.). My goal is to change the cluster and all readouts to white. Does anyone have suggestions on the easiest/cheapest route to take in order to make this change? I do want the odometer to read the exact mileage that is currently on the car, so any advice with that would also be great. Thanks in advance for the help!

 
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Search for threads about cluster swaps, and if you want to have the correct mileage displayed in a different cluster you will need to send your new unit to a speedometer repair shop that has the equipment to program mileage into the cluster.

At work we send them to Palo Alto Speedometerhttp://www.paspeedo.com/


HTH

 
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The climate control/window/sun roof/mirror/cruise ***** and buttons are easy to do. Just requires a bit of soldering know-how and access to materials (ebay was my source). I've personally done my entire dash with blue LEDs, using this guide to converting the bulbs to LEDs as a reference, and modifying it so the SMD LEDs I used sit flushly against the diffuser for the climate control *****.

Doing the instrument cluster is a bit trickier. The gauge face and odometer readout has an orange.. film.. ish.. layer on the backside that makes it illuminate orange. You'd have to remove the gauge face and take it off using rubbing alcohol. Another problem you'd face would be that whatever light you use may not diffuse through the plastic diffuser properly and you'd end up with a dimly lit or splotchily (is that a word? sure) lit instrument cluster. Odometer reading is a bit more difficult since you can't quite take out the LCD display without desoldering it. I guess a q-tip and a metric crap ton of patience would do the trick. Another option for the gauge face would be to find an EL overlay that illuminated white.

My dash, for reference:


My instrument cluster was done with an EL overlay, but they're not quite so easy to find as they were back in 2005. My needles are also done. I took them off, cleared them with rubbing alcohol, and painted the backs white so the blue light has something to project upon. During the day, they're white (on a white background), but still very visible. I also opted for SMD LEDs as opposed to the 3mm "traditional" LEDs that ledautomotive.com uses in their kits. I found them to be quite brighter. I just made sure to figure out which type of SMD LED was rated for the highest lumens for the blue color. I believe I used PLCC-2 SMD LEDs, the ones that look like this:


edit: I think I may have used 1206 SMD LEDs. I just looked at my stash and I have a bunch of blue 1206's left over.

 
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ezone & Riceboy,

I apologize for the delayed response, but thank you both for the help. I will undertake the project this weekend, so fingers crossed!

Riceboy,

Have you ever replaced the dome light for your 02? I just received my 42mm 578 led for the rear dome light, but it is actually smaller than the original 578 that came from the factory. Everything I find says that a 578 is the correct size, but these can actually bounce around in the housing. Any thoughts?

 
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Remove the lens and check out how the bulb is held in place. As long as the diameter of the contact areas are similar it should be fine.

If it's the style I'm thinking of.

 
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Here is what the size difference looks like. It fits and lights up, but because it is smaller, it has room to move around and loses connection.

 
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Can you squeeze the tabs together to tighten the grip?

 
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ezone,

It is now fixed lol. Nothing a pair of needle nose couldn't fix. Thank you!