Yeah mine fit that category for months while I was working on the interior mods. I had switches hanging by wires and components bolted to whatever wa handy. There was some zip tie engineering going on as well. I shouldve taken pictures but I didnt.

 

ooooo tis nice and bright. my dash lights are kinda weak. im thinking of going LED too.

 

I pulled the dash cap out and pulled the vinyl off of it. I filled the cracks in the foam with blue RTV, and then tried recovering it with new vinyl, but I could never get it to a point I was happy with. I ended up stripping that back off and skim coating the entire thing with bondo, and then reshaping it by hand. It took several rounds of filling, sanding, and then glazing and sanding, but I got the shape of it tuned down and right. I worked on it off and on for a few months while I did other work. I wish I had taken pictures during all that, but unfortunately I didnt think about that.

The climate control came in, and since I was ready to do that, I pulled the dash body out of the truck. I pulled all of the AC/heater ducting out of it, cleaned it, removed and replaced all the foam around the joints, painted the part of the dash cap on the top of the body, and then put everything back together. I decided to go with black for the interior, and I'm using gloss black vinyl paint from Duplicolor for the dash parts, but I'm using Plasti-Dip spray for the dash cap to set it off a bit. Since the passenger side vent is in the dash body too, I pulled it out, cleaned it, and painted it too.

I put some grease in the cables and (for lack of knowing what else to call them) clicky tracks of the climate control unit, then installed it and connected all the cables. It works a lot better than the old one did, and now the AC doesnt have to fight the heater core to cool off the cab. Now the AC will freeze your face right off. Very good thing in a Memphis summer.

I put the dash body back in once everything was dry, and discovered that there was a tiny leak in the joint of two of the AC/heater ducts. I taped that joint with aluminum tape. It doesnt show once the dash cap goes back in.

There was a lot of time gap during this stage where I drove the truck with no dash in it. Switches hung out of holes and from wires, and not having a cup holder in a standard was an interesting problem to have. During this time I cleaned and painted all the dash face parts, and repaired the hole around the radio with JB weld where it had been butchered sometime before.

When I finished shaping the dash cap, I put several coats of primer on it, sanding in between the first few to get a nice smooth surface:



Once the primer was dry, I started painting it with Plasti-Dip spray. I put 4 or 5 coats on before I was happy with it, then sprayed it with tire shine to give it a sheen and also went over it with Meguire's extreme shine protectant. Then finally after long last I got it back in:

 

They arent cheap, but you will probably never have to replace them again. if they are going to fail, they will do it right away, and superbrightleds will replace them if they do. I like the fact that their bulbs are packaged units with resistors and diodes built in. Much lower chance of failure that way.

 

oh, that black dash looks tiiiiiiiiight. adding it to my list of **** to do to my rig. lol

 

Thanks ^_^

There are a lot of people around me who just dont get why it makes me so happy.

 

And then came wiring. Lots and lots of wiring. I changed the stereo out and added the CB, an alarm system, and a glove box lamp. Which is why it looks like it puked its guts out the radio hole in that last picture.

I made some brackets for the little pocket above the radio, and another set to mount the CB box behind the ashtray. It's a Cobra 75 WX ST, so most of it is in the handset. The connection port is under the spot where the lighter was. I pulled the lighter out and installed a power outlet in that hole instead. I also found a clock on ebay from a 4runner, and since the wiring harness already has the connection for this, I bought it and put it in. I found a new climate control face to replace my cracked one as well.

The radio I chose is the Pioneer DEH-P8400BH. It has bluetooth for phone connection, and has a mic. I ran that up into the A-pillar and mounted it to the tweeter at the top of the A-pillar. (I cant take credit for the tweeters btw, they were already installed when I got it.) The radio also has a USB port on the back for an iPod dock, so I got an after market dock from a company called Brandmotion, and modified it to fit into the end of the glove box:



I found a glove box lamp socket and switch at Pull-A-Part and put them in too, which required, you guessed it, more wiring. Lol

There are two bulbs that cant be replaced with LEDs because the LED throws light in the wrong direction. They are the hazard switch light and the AC switch light. I tried the LEDs first and then was forced to find the Toyota part numbers and order regular bulbs. They are pricey, but it would bug the crap out of me if I let it go, so I replaced them.

Another thing I noticed is that the LED inside the AC switch that indicates the AC is running was dead. I pulled the switch apart, desoldered the LED from the switch board, and replaced it. It is btw a regular 3mm green 1.5V LED you can get at any Radio Shack. I'm glad I did that. Details are kinda my thing.

So I'm gonna zoom ahead here. I pulled the visors, the oh-**** handle, and the door edge trim out, painted them and the headliner, and reinstalled them. I had already painted all the dash face parts and the kick panels, so it was finally time to put everything back in. I gave the carpet a good cleaning and set to reinstalling everything. And at long last, after several months and more work than I will detail here, I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

 

What style led bulb are using in the gauge cluster

 

Miniature Wedge Base Bulbs - Super Bright LEDs

I used the following for the cluster:

2- 74-GHP3 360 degree green - main gauges
6- 74-W 100 degree cool white - bottom row indicators
3- WLED-GHP5 360 degree green - main gauges
1- WLED-WHP5 360 degree natural white - the high beam indicator I think?
2- WLED-W-90 90 degree cool white - turn signals. they are a bit blue, if I had to do it again I might have chosen green instead.

I chose them based on the position they sat in and which direction they needed to throw light. The wider patterns are more expensive but necessary if you want the gauges to light up properly.