ScottyBoy
No, that's not a banana in my pants.
I did this mod on my 2001 Suburban, but all 99-02 Sierras, Silverados, Yukons, and Tahoes have the same type of switches, so this write up should apply to all those models. 03 on up have different switches, it may or may not be similar, I'm not sure.
I was inspired by Thunderstrucks write up on how to do the guage lights so I decided to convert the indicators in my truck to blue LED's as well. So I decided to start with the window and door lock switches on the doors. I'll be doing all the other switches as well, such as the headlight switch, the rear windshield wiper switch and the dash AC control panel along with the two overhead AC panels for the rear air.
I started off by purchaseing some 5mm blue LED's along with the resistors needed for them from www.oznium.com
Then I removed the drivers side switch from the truck. To open up the switch, you have to remove all the buttons. I used a small screwdriver to pop them off. Be careful, they are only held on by two lil plastic tabs on each switch. Its one lil tab on each side, so pry under the side right where the switch pivots.
Now with all of them removed...
You can now pry the switch open. Just work your way around the switch, undoing the tabs.
Now you have the switch open to work on it.
You'll see some clear plastic light diffusers surrounding the stock bulbs, these will have to be removed. If you leave these in place ans just swap an LED in place of the stock bulb, it will look like crap. For even light coverage on every switch, I hot glued an led into each switch.
Just carefully pry up at the bottom parts where it srround the bulb.
These will not be reused.
Now you will need to find the hot and ground for the lights, which I've already done for you. The ground is the far left outer row, the hot is the far right outer row.
This is where you will solder your hot and ground leads for the LED's.
For each led, you will need to solder a hot and a ground wire to it, and solder a resistor into the hot wire. (unless you chosse to skip this step and pay the extra $$ for prewired LED's)
Heres all the LED's wired up and ready to go, with heat shrink tubing over all the solder joints.
Now you can glue each LED in place as close to the center of each switch as you can. For the lock swich button, I used two LED's to get better light coverag on the switch. Also used two for the WindowLock button. I cut the two clear "legs" off the window lock button and hot glued and LED on each side firing light up into the switch.
And heres the window switches with the LED's....
I was inspired by Thunderstrucks write up on how to do the guage lights so I decided to convert the indicators in my truck to blue LED's as well. So I decided to start with the window and door lock switches on the doors. I'll be doing all the other switches as well, such as the headlight switch, the rear windshield wiper switch and the dash AC control panel along with the two overhead AC panels for the rear air.
I started off by purchaseing some 5mm blue LED's along with the resistors needed for them from www.oznium.com
Then I removed the drivers side switch from the truck. To open up the switch, you have to remove all the buttons. I used a small screwdriver to pop them off. Be careful, they are only held on by two lil plastic tabs on each switch. Its one lil tab on each side, so pry under the side right where the switch pivots.
Now with all of them removed...
You can now pry the switch open. Just work your way around the switch, undoing the tabs.
Now you have the switch open to work on it.
You'll see some clear plastic light diffusers surrounding the stock bulbs, these will have to be removed. If you leave these in place ans just swap an LED in place of the stock bulb, it will look like crap. For even light coverage on every switch, I hot glued an led into each switch.
Just carefully pry up at the bottom parts where it srround the bulb.
These will not be reused.
Now you will need to find the hot and ground for the lights, which I've already done for you. The ground is the far left outer row, the hot is the far right outer row.
This is where you will solder your hot and ground leads for the LED's.
For each led, you will need to solder a hot and a ground wire to it, and solder a resistor into the hot wire. (unless you chosse to skip this step and pay the extra $$ for prewired LED's)
Heres all the LED's wired up and ready to go, with heat shrink tubing over all the solder joints.
Now you can glue each LED in place as close to the center of each switch as you can. For the lock swich button, I used two LED's to get better light coverag on the switch. Also used two for the WindowLock button. I cut the two clear "legs" off the window lock button and hot glued and LED on each side firing light up into the switch.
And heres the window switches with the LED's....
