For the longest time my truck beeped at me randomly. There were 5 sets of 5 beeps. This was pre FTE so when I finally couldn't take it any more and got tired of just turning up the music, I asked a local mechanic. He said that he remembered someone having the same problem with a PSD and it being a light bulb that went out in the instrument cluster.

I tore into mine and replaced every bulb in there just to make sure. Plus they were all 10 years old and I figured why not, there were probably others that were about to go out. It ended up fixing the problem. It was the airbag light that was wanting to flash but the bulb was bad, so it was beeping at me. Has anyone else had this airbag problem?

Most of you know I am kind of a lighting nut now. I am trying to replace almost every bulb that can be replaced with an LED. I got the LED tail lights and the LED 3157's for the reverse bulbs, just ordered the LED 578's for the dome light, and also ordered a bunch of white & Blue LED 194's for license plate lighting etc.

I will be getting gauges soon with the adjustable dimmer switch that allows you to make the brightness of your dash (instrument cluster) and gauges match. It then allows you to use the stock dimmer switch to adjust them together. I was wondering if it would work to replace the instrument cluster light bulbs with LED ones. Would this affect anything? I figured it would make the stock green lighting much brighter and allow me to have my gauges brighter to match. I could also try putting blue ones in there to see what color I came up with when it shined through the green speedo etc. LED's last for ever too.

I called the ford dealership and they said that they think that some of the bulbs back there are 194's and others are smaller than that. Is this true? Anyone have info?

Thanks.

 

Yep you can put LED's in the dash... I believe the bulb size is a 194.
BTW depending on which gauges you went with you may not need the extra dimmer. If you have LED's in the gauges then you might need it but with regular bulbs you probably won't.

 

Sweet thanks. Do you know about how many 194's are back there? I forget. I ordered 10 blue and 10 white. Hopefully it'll be enough and I can at least order them in some kind of way to look good. Or I might just want to order more whites/blues etc.

 

I don't have any idea in the SD. I think in the OBS there are 7 bulbs for the instrument cluster.

 

There was a thread on here recently that was talking about this, but for the life of me I can't find it. I seem to remember someone talking about 36 or so lights that had to be replaced, but I'll keep looking to see if we can help you out.

 

Sweet Thanks. Ya that sound more like it. I remember it being about 30 bucks to replace all of them so that would make sense. some over a dollar some under...

 

You found 194 LED's for under a $1? Do tell...

 

Ebay...........

 

This should help you out a bit. It's a hair confusing on exactly what you need but I think it will get you closer:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...nt-pannel.html

This one will also help you if you can't figure out how to get to the lights:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...er-lights.html

 

Here ya go, I think this will help

Lamp Replacement Guide
2000FORDF250-F550(With halogen capsule headlamps) <o></o>

High & low beam headlamp
9007
9007SU Silverstar ULTRA for Ultra Night Vision - The Whitest and Brightest Halogen
9007ST Silverstar High Performance Lighting: The Whiter and Brighter Halogen
9007EB EcoBright - Your Environmental Choice
9007XV XtraVision Halogen - The Brighter Light
9007CB Cool Blue Halogen - The Whiter Light

Parking light
3157LL

Front turn signal
3157LL

Rear turn signal
3157LL

Tail light
3157LL

Stop light
3157LL

High mount stop light
922
922LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Fog/Driving light
9006
9006SU Silverstar ULTRA for Ultra Night Vision - The Whitest and Brightest Halogen
9006ST Silverstar High Performance Lighting: The Whiter and Brighter Halogen
9006EB EcoBright - Your Environmental Choice
9006XV XtraVision Halogen - The Brighter Light
9006CB Cool Blue Halogen - The Whiter Light
9145
9145ST Silverstar High Performance Lighting: The Whiter and Brighter Halogen

License plate
168
168LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Back up light
3156LL

Front sidemarker
194
194LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Ash tray
161
161LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Glove box
161
161LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Dome light
578
912
912LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Step/Courtesy light
168
168LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Trunk/Cargo area
906
906LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Under hood light
912
912LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Instrument-general
194
194LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp
37
PC161

Check engine indicator
194
194LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Hi-beam indicator
194
194LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Seat belt indicator
194
194LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Brake warning
194
194LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Automatic transmission indicator
194
194LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

Directional signal indicator
194
194LL Long Life Upgrade: Up to twice the life of the standard lamp

<o></o>
<o> </o>
<o></o>

 

For the instrument cluster I managed to use 6 LED T5 size to replace the stock illumination bulbs. The trick is that the bulb between the turn indicator bulbs is also a illumination bulb. With a bit of careful resizing, you can wire the T5 LED into the stock bulb holder and plug the big LED in.

The problem is that the green is really build into the instrument dash card, so with Blue LEDs emitting blue light, and the green foil only allowing green light to pass though, the result is a very low lit dash.

I'm now trying a white dash card, but it has red numbers - and I'm getting the same result - lots of blue light coming through over the odo and trip, but the dash card does not allow blue light to come through - so still too dark even on the brightest setting. I may have to convert back to the stock bulbs and accept the fact that the instruments are red and the gauge numbers are blue...

 

Simon, I am looking to do the same thing. I really really like the autometer cobalts and that blue color. It would be awesome to match that blue throughout my whole cab but I dont know about all this soldering and glueing. What if I wanted just the steering wheel, the window and unlocks buttons, the middle of the dash switches (ac/heat etc), and my Odometer to be blue.

Basically the only thing I would keep green is the backlighting on on the speedo, fuel, oil pressure, battery power etc. I just want to avoid the inconsistancy of the backlighting on those ones.

What are all of the bulbs that I need to do this? and What is the process? I have replaced all of those bulbs with stock ones before so I know how to get into the cluster but what about the steering wheel and door ones etc.? I have ordered ten of the blue LED 194's and ten of the white LED 194's. I'm thinking that this wont be enough. Maybe order more blues? What are T4's and T5's?

Thanks

 

Wow. Thanks for the info guys. And here is the ebay link for the LED's. This is just the search "LED 194". I got the blue's for 99 cents and the whites for a few bucks. Justto find out that I need the blues ha.

LED 194 items - Get great deals on eBay Motors, Electronics items on eBay.com!

 

if yall were having issues with the colors coming thru, I wonder how this person figured it out..... these are white LED's from SuperBrightLeds.com

the guy said he purchased white LEDs and as you can see in the pic, look good

 

The "fix" involves removing the plastic number sticker (which has the see through parts) and sanding or removing the green film on the rear of it. Then you put it back on and change the light color.

I did that on my ranger. I would post pics, but I sold the ranger.