STRMurphy
02-15-2004, 09:04 PM
Well, Im finally done with a long time project of having clear HVAC knobs and making the light behind them blue. It was a PITA, but well worth it after seeing the finished project. Here I want to share how to do it, so anyone who wants to try this hopefully wont run into as much crap as I did getting it done...
First off, you are going to need to purchase 3 new knobs (unless you are making all the lighting red) from gmpartsdirect, or your local dealership, the part number you need is 16182994. Make sure to buy three, as it says its a pack, but its a pack of 1. Other tools and parts needed:
1 small flat-head screwdriver
1 ratchet set
2 3mm LED's (whatever color you are doing the lighting in)
6 3mm or 5mm LEDs (same color)
1 Soldering iron
1 de-soldering tool or wick
1 spool of solder
1 470 ohm, 1/2 watt resistor
2 butt-splice connector sets (2 male and 2 female)
1 pair of pliers (needlenose)
1 pair of wire cutters
1 crimping tool
Ok, now for the fun part
Start off by removing the trim around the ignition key and then removing the radio trim. Do this my sliding the flathead around the ouside underneath the trim and gently pulling it out. You will have to place the shifter in a position other than PARK to do this. Remove the wiring harnesses for the ETS and HAZARD lights... they will come off with the flathead....
Next is getting the HVAC out. Most books recommend that anytime you mess with anything electronic in the car you remove the battery leads and so on, but as long as you dont have your key in the ignition, you will be all set. Using the ratchet set, remove the two bolts from either side of the HVAC control. Next, gently pull the HVAC module out as far as it can go. There should be 4 things connected to it. On the left is some wires, remove this piece as you did the ETS light piece. Next, another wiring harness, same thing. Under that there is a double vacuum line. To remove this, use the flathead and push the rubber loop over the plastic arrow looking piece, then pull it off. Lastly there is a big circular hoobie with a bunch of vacuum lines on it. There are three places it is connected. Use the flathead to pry each off. WARNING!!! There is a small steel ball inside this piece, it is very easy to lose. Be careful when removing this vacuum harness or you will drop the ball (hehe). Not fun to find.
Once you have the module out, take it to your work area, make sure you have that stupid little steel ball, or you put it someplace you wont lose it. At this point remove the two left side HVAC knobs, keep the right side one on until you are ready to take the module apart. Looking at the module you will see 4 places the front clips to the back. Use the flathead to pop it off. WARNING!!! If you dont keep the right side knob on until this point, pieces will go flying everywhere! The knob holds it all together. Ok, now, on the back side where you unplugged the big vacuum harness, you will see a black circle piece... hold that in place and then remove the third HVAC knob. Now carefully remove that piece and its internals. There should be the black platic disk, 3 springs, and a brass disk. Dont lose these pieces... Took me a while to find one of those springs... and the little steel ball... not fun. Anyway, once that is removed, pry apart the front and back and you should see inside the white part a circuit board. This is a bitch to remove. If you look on the other side of the white piece you will see at one end a small hole, and in the middle three small holes in an arc... inside these holes are pins... use the flathead and push the pins out, thereby pushing out the circuit board... its a pain. Once removed, get ready for some soldering (and desoldering)
Looking at the board you will see two LEDs (3mm) which convieniently have the direction they are mounted printed net to them. The rest are just bulbs. The two LEDs are the lights you see when the rear defrost is on, or when the A/C button is depressed. Go ahead and look at one of your new LEDs. Inside you will see a fat part and a skinny part and a reeeeeeeeeeaaally small wire connecting them. The fat part is the anode, goes in the direction of the arrow on the board, thus if looking at the arrow on the board iand it points to the right, the fat metal piece inside the LED goes on the right. I hope Im not offending anyone, there are many out there who dont know anything about LEDs so Im trying to make this as simple as possible... anywho... make sure your new LEDs go in the same way, with the fat part in the direction of the arrow, or else the LED wont turn on.
DESOLDERING
To desolder: I find the wick works best, and the way I do it (Im not the best when it comes to this, so there is probably a better way) is to place the wick over what you want to take solder off of, and then place the soldering iron tip onto the wick and press against the solder until you see it melt and travel up the wick. Once you have desoldered the 2 LEDs and 6 bulbs, its time to solder in some LEDs
SOLDERING
To solder: Again, Im not the best at this, so someone else probably could do it better, and I wont even go into it I guess... Just make sure the LEDs go in the right direction, or you are going to have to desolder them and turn them 180 later... not fun. I will post drawings and pics after the text version of this.
Once all the soldering is done, its time to put it all back together. This can be tricky, but Ive done it like 5 times now, so its not too bad... anyway, place the board back into the white plastic piece and press the stabs into the holes. Make sure its a tight fit, as those stabs are the power and ground I believe... Then put the front piece back on and clip it together. Now, take the brass disk from before and place it inside the back of the white piece. It goes in a certain way. Look at the photo and notice where the arrow is pointing. You will notice on the brass piece there are several raised bits, and only one if them isint a circle. That "rectangular" bit goes where the arrow is pointing. Next, put the springs back in the black disk and carefully put that back into the module. I did it with everything horizontal, so the springs wouldnt fall out. You will also notice the springs match up to certain indented parts of the brass, and only fits one way. Hold the black piece in there and put the knob back on for that switch. That should hold it together.
THE RESISTOR
To make this all work and not burn up the LEDs, you will need to put a resistor inline with the power soming into the unit. Go back out to your car and find the middle wiring harness, the one closest to the two hose vacuum piece. There is a grey wire there. Cut the wire and put in the resistor (about 470 ohms... the smaller the brighter the lights will be, but I dont recommend anything less than about 300 ohms). This parts you have to figure out how you want to do it, I took and soldered a bit of wire to each end of the resistor, then put a female butt splice piece on the ends of the wires, wrapped it all in electrical tape (going to heat shrink it later) and then put male splices on the two ends of the grey wires. Doesnt matter which way the resistor goes in, it cant be backwards. Put the resistor in, wrap the ends in electrical tape, and then you are done... installation of the module is the opposite of removal.
CLEAR KNOBS
Ok, those knobs that I gave you the P/N for, they are from the Sunfire I believe. They are a bit thinner than ours, and not quite as nice, but with a little modification, they work great. First off, the grey rubber/vinyl crap on them just peels off... really nice. But you will notice there are little bumps on it. I too my dremel to the whole knobs and smoothed it out. Next, if you were to just try and put the knobs on your module, you will notice they go on "backwards" as in, the pointers dont point the right direction... so, to fix that,, first you have to remove the little metal half circle piece inside the hole. Kind of a pain, but it'll come out. Next, using a drill, drill out the hole so it is a full circle. Next, use the smallest bit you have and drill a pilot hole through the stem on the opposite side the flat end of that metal thing was on. I dont have a pic for this, so you can PM me later if you dont understand, Ill eventually get a pic up of what I mean. Now, you are going to need to get the smallest setscrew you can find, and insert that into the hole you just made. This will act as waht stops the knobs from spinning freely. Put the knob on the post of whatever switch it is for, and make sure the setscrew touches the flat part of the post of the switch... use an allen head to tighten it up, and voila, you are done! Hope this helps people, I had a hell of a time doing this, but its worth it now that its done.
First off, you are going to need to purchase 3 new knobs (unless you are making all the lighting red) from gmpartsdirect, or your local dealership, the part number you need is 16182994. Make sure to buy three, as it says its a pack, but its a pack of 1. Other tools and parts needed:
1 small flat-head screwdriver
1 ratchet set
2 3mm LED's (whatever color you are doing the lighting in)
6 3mm or 5mm LEDs (same color)
1 Soldering iron
1 de-soldering tool or wick
1 spool of solder
1 470 ohm, 1/2 watt resistor
2 butt-splice connector sets (2 male and 2 female)
1 pair of pliers (needlenose)
1 pair of wire cutters
1 crimping tool
Ok, now for the fun part
Start off by removing the trim around the ignition key and then removing the radio trim. Do this my sliding the flathead around the ouside underneath the trim and gently pulling it out. You will have to place the shifter in a position other than PARK to do this. Remove the wiring harnesses for the ETS and HAZARD lights... they will come off with the flathead....
Next is getting the HVAC out. Most books recommend that anytime you mess with anything electronic in the car you remove the battery leads and so on, but as long as you dont have your key in the ignition, you will be all set. Using the ratchet set, remove the two bolts from either side of the HVAC control. Next, gently pull the HVAC module out as far as it can go. There should be 4 things connected to it. On the left is some wires, remove this piece as you did the ETS light piece. Next, another wiring harness, same thing. Under that there is a double vacuum line. To remove this, use the flathead and push the rubber loop over the plastic arrow looking piece, then pull it off. Lastly there is a big circular hoobie with a bunch of vacuum lines on it. There are three places it is connected. Use the flathead to pry each off. WARNING!!! There is a small steel ball inside this piece, it is very easy to lose. Be careful when removing this vacuum harness or you will drop the ball (hehe). Not fun to find.
Once you have the module out, take it to your work area, make sure you have that stupid little steel ball, or you put it someplace you wont lose it. At this point remove the two left side HVAC knobs, keep the right side one on until you are ready to take the module apart. Looking at the module you will see 4 places the front clips to the back. Use the flathead to pop it off. WARNING!!! If you dont keep the right side knob on until this point, pieces will go flying everywhere! The knob holds it all together. Ok, now, on the back side where you unplugged the big vacuum harness, you will see a black circle piece... hold that in place and then remove the third HVAC knob. Now carefully remove that piece and its internals. There should be the black platic disk, 3 springs, and a brass disk. Dont lose these pieces... Took me a while to find one of those springs... and the little steel ball... not fun. Anyway, once that is removed, pry apart the front and back and you should see inside the white part a circuit board. This is a bitch to remove. If you look on the other side of the white piece you will see at one end a small hole, and in the middle three small holes in an arc... inside these holes are pins... use the flathead and push the pins out, thereby pushing out the circuit board... its a pain. Once removed, get ready for some soldering (and desoldering)
Looking at the board you will see two LEDs (3mm) which convieniently have the direction they are mounted printed net to them. The rest are just bulbs. The two LEDs are the lights you see when the rear defrost is on, or when the A/C button is depressed. Go ahead and look at one of your new LEDs. Inside you will see a fat part and a skinny part and a reeeeeeeeeeaaally small wire connecting them. The fat part is the anode, goes in the direction of the arrow on the board, thus if looking at the arrow on the board iand it points to the right, the fat metal piece inside the LED goes on the right. I hope Im not offending anyone, there are many out there who dont know anything about LEDs so Im trying to make this as simple as possible... anywho... make sure your new LEDs go in the same way, with the fat part in the direction of the arrow, or else the LED wont turn on.
DESOLDERING
To desolder: I find the wick works best, and the way I do it (Im not the best when it comes to this, so there is probably a better way) is to place the wick over what you want to take solder off of, and then place the soldering iron tip onto the wick and press against the solder until you see it melt and travel up the wick. Once you have desoldered the 2 LEDs and 6 bulbs, its time to solder in some LEDs
SOLDERING
To solder: Again, Im not the best at this, so someone else probably could do it better, and I wont even go into it I guess... Just make sure the LEDs go in the right direction, or you are going to have to desolder them and turn them 180 later... not fun. I will post drawings and pics after the text version of this.
Once all the soldering is done, its time to put it all back together. This can be tricky, but Ive done it like 5 times now, so its not too bad... anyway, place the board back into the white plastic piece and press the stabs into the holes. Make sure its a tight fit, as those stabs are the power and ground I believe... Then put the front piece back on and clip it together. Now, take the brass disk from before and place it inside the back of the white piece. It goes in a certain way. Look at the photo and notice where the arrow is pointing. You will notice on the brass piece there are several raised bits, and only one if them isint a circle. That "rectangular" bit goes where the arrow is pointing. Next, put the springs back in the black disk and carefully put that back into the module. I did it with everything horizontal, so the springs wouldnt fall out. You will also notice the springs match up to certain indented parts of the brass, and only fits one way. Hold the black piece in there and put the knob back on for that switch. That should hold it together.
THE RESISTOR
To make this all work and not burn up the LEDs, you will need to put a resistor inline with the power soming into the unit. Go back out to your car and find the middle wiring harness, the one closest to the two hose vacuum piece. There is a grey wire there. Cut the wire and put in the resistor (about 470 ohms... the smaller the brighter the lights will be, but I dont recommend anything less than about 300 ohms). This parts you have to figure out how you want to do it, I took and soldered a bit of wire to each end of the resistor, then put a female butt splice piece on the ends of the wires, wrapped it all in electrical tape (going to heat shrink it later) and then put male splices on the two ends of the grey wires. Doesnt matter which way the resistor goes in, it cant be backwards. Put the resistor in, wrap the ends in electrical tape, and then you are done... installation of the module is the opposite of removal.
CLEAR KNOBS
Ok, those knobs that I gave you the P/N for, they are from the Sunfire I believe. They are a bit thinner than ours, and not quite as nice, but with a little modification, they work great. First off, the grey rubber/vinyl crap on them just peels off... really nice. But you will notice there are little bumps on it. I too my dremel to the whole knobs and smoothed it out. Next, if you were to just try and put the knobs on your module, you will notice they go on "backwards" as in, the pointers dont point the right direction... so, to fix that,, first you have to remove the little metal half circle piece inside the hole. Kind of a pain, but it'll come out. Next, using a drill, drill out the hole so it is a full circle. Next, use the smallest bit you have and drill a pilot hole through the stem on the opposite side the flat end of that metal thing was on. I dont have a pic for this, so you can PM me later if you dont understand, Ill eventually get a pic up of what I mean. Now, you are going to need to get the smallest setscrew you can find, and insert that into the hole you just made. This will act as waht stops the knobs from spinning freely. Put the knob on the post of whatever switch it is for, and make sure the setscrew touches the flat part of the post of the switch... use an allen head to tighten it up, and voila, you are done! Hope this helps people, I had a hell of a time doing this, but its worth it now that its done.