hondaguru04's 2004 Honda Element on CarDomain

Parts needed...9 LED bulbs. But I highly recomend you buy at least 20 of them. As you read on you'll see why. Go here for them.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?product=CAR They are the second from the bottom of the page and should read INSTRUMENT CLUSTER AND BACKLIGHT. then there is a little section on the bottom that will bring you to buy just the bulbs. You cannot use the bases because they are not compatable with the Element.

First and most important Please dissconnect your battery.

OK, now that your ready to go 1st you must pull off the driver side dash panel.
Pull

You may have to add some elbow grease!

And remove 1 screw

Next remove the instrument panel cover
Pull from the botttom of the panel. You DO NOT want to use a screwdriver or anything to pry it off because you will scar up your dash! Your fingers should hurt like hell when this project is over.
Puling and Coming off (fingers are in pain!)

Now remove the 4 screws that hold in the instrument cluster.

Pull the cluster out and upwards to show the 2 connectors that require removal.

After removing the connectors look at the back side of the cluster and you will see 9 sockets that require removal.

Remove by using the needlenose pliers GENTLY turn counterclockwise.

Then hold the socket and bulb assy in your hand and pull on the bulb while wiggling side to side. You should have something that looks like this 9 times.

OK! Now you are about to do the most hard, tedious, and time consuming part of the job. This portion took me well over 4 hours to complete mostly because I was experimenting. To my knoweledge no one else has done this mod this way!

Aight, now look at the bulbs

They look like they will just slide into place inside the Elements base sockets right? Correct they will fit right into the socket.

BUT!!!! Go ahead and try...I know your not gonna beleive me, but they stick out of the socket WAY too far and will not fit into the cluster itself. BUMMER!

This had me stumped for a while and I saw what was done on the other guy's Element page, but that looked more difficult than nessecary.

So if you look at the wedge bulbs you ordered you will see that they have tiny resistors soldered to the LED. This made me start to brain storm. If I could get those resistors and use them instead of the huge ones that you get at Radio Shack, it would be great! This is what I came up with.

First, bend the leads from the base straight out.

Make sure they are pretty straight, then using 2 pairs of needlenose pliers...1 set on the base of the wedge and the other on the LED itself. Like this

Now, squeeze the base of the wedge pretty good, just dont break it. And pull on the led squeezing gently enough not to break it. Pull side to side and up and down easily to guide the LED with the resistor and what seems to be a diode or something out all together! You should have this

It becomes easier and easier as it goes. See why I said you'll need alot more than 9? I broke a total of 7 while doing this, but its worth it because of the size of the resistors. This makes the install smooth.

Heres the aftermath of all the LED's being pulled out.

I had alot of extras which is good because you may break a few more in the process of getting them into the sockets.

Ok now cut one lead a little less than 1/4 inch from the other side. This makes it ALOT easier to get them to fit into the socket. I learned this the hard way so take my advice.

NOTE: SORRY FOR THE CRAPPY PICS

Now look at the socket on the bottom of them you'll see little holes on each side. You want to get 1 lead out of one and the other out the other side. Then fold the access over the bottom of the socket.

I couldnt get any pics of this so your on your own for that. It takes alot of time but again its worth it! After a few you'll see exactly how to bend the bottom of them before putting them into the socket and it will get easier.

Should look like this.

Now, ounce you have done that to all nine of them put back together in the reverse order of the install.

NOTE: I changed the to bottom ones in the middle back to the regular bulbs because I had trouble seeing my odometer in the day time. PLUS, it doesnt look bad like that at all.

Also, you may have some that will not work at first. This is easily solved...just pull the socket back out and pull the LED back out. The just flip the LED around to put the LED back into the socket backwards.

The reason for this is because the LED's will not work neutrally with pos. and neg. voltage (basically electricicty will only flow one direction through the LED's). So just flip them around and they should work!

And if that doesnt work then start changing the sockets postiions. Just pull 2 out and swap there positions. I had to do this for soem reason. I dont know why, but these sockets are pretty sensitive to there respective holes.

After its all said and done it should look like this!