FAQ: Interior Lighting Questions (Dash/Guage Color)

a friend of mine just gave me a dash cluster out of a 96+ riv.
i am trying to replace the bulbs with either brighter ones or blue LED's.
anyone have any cool idea's for an experiment? i thought about painting the area around the gauges but i dont know if it would look good with my wood dash.

also i just found out we have a "change oil soon" light but no bulb for it....is there a sensor on out cars that reads the viscosity/color of the oil, or a mileage counter? (maybe i just never let mine go that far)
do our cars come set up with that feature? why else would it be on the dash? i dont think we have the same cluster parts as any other cars.
also we have a "brake to shift" light which is GREEN! but i have never seen mine come on. why is that?
if anyone needs a new dash cluster i would be more than happy to reassemble it and sent it to you, im just using it to experiment on right now.

oh, and if i plug up a different dash would the odo read what my car has on it, or what the other car had on it? can our pcms recognize the swap or would i need to take ti to the dealer to recalibrate it?
TIA
Matthew
here is the regalgs link to changing the colors for those who havent seen it yet.

http://www.regalgs.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34053&highlight=dash

I think those lights are optional features that were never used, or were used in early models and discontinued. I've read that the "brake to shift" light came on when you started the engine in '95 models, to tell you how to put the car into gear. In theory, someone might not have their foot on the brake and wonder why the shifter won't move. Buick must've realized the redundancy and removed it for '96.

the stupid euro cars have that "feature". like the BMW's, Audi's, and VW's all have a yellow light of a foot that stays on until you touch the brake, then you can change gear. you can't even drop it from N to D without touching the brake. very annoying for valets and car wash employs

Mr.Riviera wrote:

also we have a "brake to shift" light which is GREEN! but i have never seen mine come on. why is that?

AA wrote:

I've read that the "brake to shift" light came on when you started the engine in '95 models, to tell you how to put the car into gear. In theory, someone might not have their foot on the brake and wonder why the shifter won't move. Buick must've realized the redundancy and removed it for '96.

It comes on in my '95 and doesn't in the '99, I just kind of figured the bulb was burned out in the '99.
Good to know that it isn't supposed to work on '96 and newer, save me the trouble of changing it in the Silver Arrow.

I played around and changed mine to blue at one time. Just as it was stated in the thread, the blue looked pretty dark. Darker than the picture showed and the green stood out and made the car look dated IMO. I switched it back soon after. Not only is the OD green but all the temp controls and the stock radio. It just looked out of place with blue gauges. Wish it would have worked.

I kinda like the Borg green, especially since I'm getting so much evil black in the interior with the dash kit. But an energetic orange yellow would fit the color scheme too and the more athletic nature of the modded car.

too bad i cant make it look like this cluster. how sweet would this color scheme be?

im sure you could make it some what like the gto's a custom guage overlay with white bulbs to difuse the colors that way did it when i had my hayabusa not that hard . The only thing is the shifter and od would be green. Could change it imsure with alittle careful electronics.

I love the blue lights. I hate the green.

I like the GTOs but I wouldn't put red in my Riv. Just the white and blue.

The cluster bulbs have the little bluish rubber tint sheet on it. If you take it off, the resulting color is an even less attractive yellowish color because it seems the numbers and stuff on the gauges have some tint naturally and the blue sheet on the bulbs correct it so it's green. The result of all this is not much can be done to change it. I haven't tried taking apart the cluster beyond the rear circuit board to investigate further.

I can give you the part number for a brighter, higher wattage halogen bulb that will pretty much be a direct replacement to the 194 stock bulb but it's actually a tad bit smaller capsule than the 194 so the little tint sheet won't fit on it so it will definitely be a pissy yellow color. I haven't tried using LED's though. I think i'll rip apart my extra 98 cluster farther and investigate some more

to answer your question about the odometer, matthew, the numbers stay with the cluster. It will read the miles from whatever riv it cam out of.

do you have a wire diagram so i can hook up a 12v bat to it and have it show the mileage?
i got some 168 bulbs which are like 1watt brighter than 194's, but i couldnt see the difference.
the LED's will work but they must be ordered and cost a bit more. i didnt feel like paying any more to just experiment.

quote: "to answer your question about the odometer, matthew, the numbers stay with the cluster. It will read the miles from whatever riv it cam out of."

Thanks for the info, good to know!

LEDs don't have the characteristic of unidirectional light, like a standard bulb. My fear with those is that the light will spotlight onto a section of the the gauges rather than fill them with even light which ain't cool

they make a wide LED that will help disperse the light in all directions. it seemed to work for some others in the regalgs community.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/194-168-5-LED-Lights-Blue-2-Bulbs-Wide-View-Angle-Best_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33713QQihZ001QQitemZ110167043016QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

how many LEDS do i need to change over almost all the lights in the car. i for a 20 set om ebay for 9 bucks

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200185858840&ssPageName=MERC_VI_RCRX_Pr12_PcY_BIN_Stores_IT&refitem=200185684150&itemcount=12&refwidgetloc=active_view_item&usedrule1=CrossSell_LogicX&refwidgettype=cross_promot_widget

i have some questions tho,

dose the MPH use the same LED ans the needle and the KPH

how many LED will i need to do the full conversion

has any one found a way to do the miles and or the gear change or the temp on the HVAC

what color should i do red or white

how long should this take

what bulb numbers do i need to order,

i tried to join regale GS but i said blocked IP

any help would be great

Do not waste your time or money fellow Riv owners. The LED bulbs wether it be the 5 led bulb or the wide angle one does not produce enough light. I've tried it and wasted about $50 on www.superbrightleds.com. It looks stupid with the green light from the miles/gear selector coupled with the radio and heat controls.

ok....u see how the gear part and the temperature part is green?? what if a colored film...if i remember correct yellow + green = blue...is place over it..yeah it would prolly look like a different blue....but would still look decent or presentable. anyonoe ever thought of that?

naww yellow + green isn't blue. taking it apart and messin with it, I saw that if you remove the blueish condoms from the bulbs, the cluster shows up as some nasty yellow color with a hint of green still and hardly any brighter. I tried a few different things to change the color but nothing seems to work. I might mess around with my extra cluster again and take it apart to see if there are any other possibilities.

Hey everyone, the other day, I was working in my car putting some LED lights into the interior handle areas where the greenish-tinted lights are because one of them suddenly stopped working. I unplugged the normal light from where it plugs into the negative and positive wires in the car. Then, I tested the LED light I bought out by touching its wires with the car's pos. and neg. wires. The light lit up, but after screwing around more, I noticed it wouldn't light up any more.

Then, I tried to turn the instrument panel lights on, but no matter what, won't come on. The radio and odometer lights come on perfectly bright, and the headlights come on fine, but the instrument lights won't at all.

Has anyone had any problems like this before? I don't know if my 12V light would have caused that big of a problem, but it seems like the only culprit here. If anyone's got helpful advie, let me know. In the meantime, I'll take a look at the fuse box.

Actually, never mind, just fixed it. It was a fuse problem. So, never mind with that.

I'm betting it's a fuse. Check each with a meter to be sure they're good.

Hm, I thought the problem was solved when I messed with it last night, but it seems it's doing the same exact thing tonight. Will check out further.

To the Buick Century I go to get back from work at night in one piece :/

Those tiny lamps are still available. I have a '95 Riviera and according to the Riviera exploded parts diagram the part number for the door handle with the blue lens is 12536289 and it includes the entire assembly (lamp, wiring harness, and connector). They are still available through the dealer (I just ordered two of them for $16.85 each) and it looks like you can also find them at www.newgmparts.com for $14.36 each.

While I am here - you can get the tiny lamps that go in the door pulls at http://vpartsinc.com/. These are the tiny lamps that shine down on the window and door lock controls. They are barely visible through a tiny slit in this door strap handle. The part number is 12535585. Expensive though. They are $20.33 each with about $7.50 in shipping.
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http://ucfpics.com/95Riv.htm

has anyone tried to replace the light behind the instrument panel? i wanna change mine to blue

'96reese wrote:

has anyone tried to replace the light behind the instrument panel? i wanna change mine to blue

There have been a few attempts over the years. From what I remember, it wasn't worth the trouble. Even after you change all of the bulbs, the rest of the car will still have green lights. Here is a thread if you are still interested in it http://www.regalgs.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34053.