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HEATER CONTROLL UNIT LIGHTING UPGRADE
This mod is probably best planned for when you are going to strip the lower dash at some point, it’s not easy to remove and it’s probably better to buy another unit from a breaker and upgrade the light’s on that then you have one ready to do a quick replacement as opposed to having the dash in bits for several days, if your original heater light’s still work their probably like mine, very dim, when you strip the unit down it’s not hard to see why, two small bulbs give the back lighting to the slide controls and the push button symbols via two clear plastic “prism’s” and chances are one or both bulbs have already blown and not been replaced as their hard to get at, if their working their as dim as hell,
This upgrade as you can see from the finished pics give a good light to the slides and buttons, it’s a bit fiddly but well worth it in my view,
There are I suppose two parts to this upgrade, the backlighting for the sliders and push button symbols and the original led’s,(for the button un use)
These leds are factory fitted and soldered onto the PCB and ment to shine through the small slot at the top of each button and come on when that particular button is pressed, showing what particular function has been selected,
I changed these for the colors you see in the pics and added leds to the cut down prisems
So they match,
FIRST STEP
To remove the unit the center lower dash needs to first be removed, the front of the heater controls unit just unclips having first pulled the slid knobs off, then undo the screws attaching the heater to the dash, reach round behind the heater box in the passenger foot well and unclip the flap operating cable, from under the bonnet unclip the water on/off cable from it’s lever switch and pull through the bulkhead grommet, you can now pull the heater control unit forward and unplug the wiring harness plugs, either unclip both cables or leave them attached and pull both cables out with the unit, take the unit indoors where you can work on it in comfort,
Remove all the screws you see, top, bottom and the two holding the main wiring socket plastic “U” clamp, and carefully pull the back off, you will need to lift the wiring socket and fold it up out of the way, it’s on a flexi wire tape, and also lever the locking tab free with a small flat blade screwdriver (see the pic) the rear part has the sliders and cables, put to one side, the plug top cover also can be put to one side,
SECOND STEP
The circuit board is held in place by two screws and 3 x tabs that fit into slots around the casing, gently lever it out, it is quite tight and made harder by the fact that the pushbutton switches “click” into the rear of the actual buttons, once it’s free you will see the original 3mm led’s this part of the upgrade is the easyist and is simply a matter of desoldering the old led’s and soldering in your new ones, don’t forget to replace them so they are the same way round (polarity) as the old ones, the board is marked with a + on the other side of the board (+ for positive leg of the led) but these little + are difficult to se as the black plastic frame that holds the led’s in place is positioned over most of them, a tip to make it easier to remove the old ones is to break off the tiny locking clips you will see that are clipped over each head of each led (see the pic), once all the led’s have been replaced with your chosen color scheme this part can be put to one side
THIRD STEP (the back lighting)
This is the most fiddly part, the pictures should explain what you have to do but basically your drilling holes and adding led’s
First you need to strip down the casing parts, first of which is the blower switch, this is removed by inserting a small flat blade into the slot shown and levering the tab while pushing backward on the switch itself, when it pops backward a small way it can then be pushed downward to remove it from the slots,
Next you have to insert a small electrical flat blade into the slots shown and lever it while pushing back on the clear plastic parts, these will then pop out the back, that’s it all stripped and ready,
Next cut away the clear plastic where shown, your cutting off the small “turrets” that supposedly carry light to the back of the switches, led’s are fitted in place of these removed parts, also cut along the back side, the amount you remove will be the space you have to run and connect up the led’s (if you don’t remove this part you wont get the PCB in) these two parts are best cut in a vise and slowly with a new hacksaw blade, fast sawing will just create heat and melt the plastic and jam the blade,
Next you have to drill 1-1.2mm holes for the button led’s to pass through as shown, then drill 3mm holes into (but not through) the rear of the two parts, (these are for the slider controls lighting, work out how many you’ll want, this is up to you as is what color’s you choose, all you really need behind the hot/cold slider are white/clear led’s as the front panel is already colored, the blower slide you can add whatever color(s) you want, (blue and red makes a nice effect)
Make up the button led’s by sliding very small bits of heat-shrink to each leg, shrink it and carefully bend the legs so when fitted into the plastic parts they will point at the back of each switch front) a spot of cyno will hold them in place, also cyno in the slider led’s as shown, once dry carefully bend all the led legs in order to connect them up, all negative legs can be soldered together, positive legs will need to have a resistor added FOR EACH COLOR you can add one resistor for say a set of the same color but connecting one resistor to two different colors will result in one of them not working,
How you connect up is a matter of choice and what you find easier, but remember to insulate any wires or led legs that cross over each with heatshrink and remember the space is limited, once all the connections are made on the two separate parts it’s time to check them on a 12v battery in fact check all led’s before you fit them as I’ve had some duff ones out a new pack,
Next you can either run separate feed wires for each clear plastic part or connect them together, once you know all the led’s are working ok click each part back into the casing, you’ll hear a slight “click” as they slot home, once you’ve soldered on the feed wires connect up the battery again and move/ bend carefully the led’heads until your happy that they shine properly onto the back of each symbol, use a non conductive tool to bend or move them if you still connected up to a test battery,
Next run a strip of insulating tape along the connections incase they short on the pcb switch bar when you fit it,, check all buttons are free and able to slide without fouling,
Next refit the blower switch it clicks in place,
Next refit the PCB carefully lower it in place and feed your pos and neg leads out from within through the old bulb hole, use the hole opposite the main slider so the leads wont foul, press the pcb home, again you’ll hear/feel the switches click into place, check all 3 tabs have located and refit the 2 screws, then check each button works as it should, connect up the feeds again and double check everything’s working ok,
Next refit the rear part containing the the main slider and cables, click in place and refit the casing screws,
Bend the socket into place and fit the “U” shaped cover (2 x screws)
Refit the unit into the dash (reverse of removing it) and connect up your added leads to a dash light source (positive) and negative to ground/chassis metal or an existing known ground fixing, check everything’s ok before refitting the dash and you should now have heater controls you can actually see in the dark!!
This mod is probably best planned for when you are going to strip the lower dash at some point, it’s not easy to remove and it’s probably better to buy another unit from a breaker and upgrade the light’s on that then you have one ready to do a quick replacement as opposed to having the dash in bits for several days, if your original heater light’s still work their probably like mine, very dim, when you strip the unit down it’s not hard to see why, two small bulbs give the back lighting to the slide controls and the push button symbols via two clear plastic “prism’s” and chances are one or both bulbs have already blown and not been replaced as their hard to get at, if their working their as dim as hell,
This upgrade as you can see from the finished pics give a good light to the slides and buttons, it’s a bit fiddly but well worth it in my view,
There are I suppose two parts to this upgrade, the backlighting for the sliders and push button symbols and the original led’s,(for the button un use)
These leds are factory fitted and soldered onto the PCB and ment to shine through the small slot at the top of each button and come on when that particular button is pressed, showing what particular function has been selected,
I changed these for the colors you see in the pics and added leds to the cut down prisems
So they match,
FIRST STEP
To remove the unit the center lower dash needs to first be removed, the front of the heater controls unit just unclips having first pulled the slid knobs off, then undo the screws attaching the heater to the dash, reach round behind the heater box in the passenger foot well and unclip the flap operating cable, from under the bonnet unclip the water on/off cable from it’s lever switch and pull through the bulkhead grommet, you can now pull the heater control unit forward and unplug the wiring harness plugs, either unclip both cables or leave them attached and pull both cables out with the unit, take the unit indoors where you can work on it in comfort,
Remove all the screws you see, top, bottom and the two holding the main wiring socket plastic “U” clamp, and carefully pull the back off, you will need to lift the wiring socket and fold it up out of the way, it’s on a flexi wire tape, and also lever the locking tab free with a small flat blade screwdriver (see the pic) the rear part has the sliders and cables, put to one side, the plug top cover also can be put to one side,
SECOND STEP
The circuit board is held in place by two screws and 3 x tabs that fit into slots around the casing, gently lever it out, it is quite tight and made harder by the fact that the pushbutton switches “click” into the rear of the actual buttons, once it’s free you will see the original 3mm led’s this part of the upgrade is the easyist and is simply a matter of desoldering the old led’s and soldering in your new ones, don’t forget to replace them so they are the same way round (polarity) as the old ones, the board is marked with a + on the other side of the board (+ for positive leg of the led) but these little + are difficult to se as the black plastic frame that holds the led’s in place is positioned over most of them, a tip to make it easier to remove the old ones is to break off the tiny locking clips you will see that are clipped over each head of each led (see the pic), once all the led’s have been replaced with your chosen color scheme this part can be put to one side
THIRD STEP (the back lighting)
This is the most fiddly part, the pictures should explain what you have to do but basically your drilling holes and adding led’s
First you need to strip down the casing parts, first of which is the blower switch, this is removed by inserting a small flat blade into the slot shown and levering the tab while pushing backward on the switch itself, when it pops backward a small way it can then be pushed downward to remove it from the slots,
Next you have to insert a small electrical flat blade into the slots shown and lever it while pushing back on the clear plastic parts, these will then pop out the back, that’s it all stripped and ready,
Next cut away the clear plastic where shown, your cutting off the small “turrets” that supposedly carry light to the back of the switches, led’s are fitted in place of these removed parts, also cut along the back side, the amount you remove will be the space you have to run and connect up the led’s (if you don’t remove this part you wont get the PCB in) these two parts are best cut in a vise and slowly with a new hacksaw blade, fast sawing will just create heat and melt the plastic and jam the blade,
Next you have to drill 1-1.2mm holes for the button led’s to pass through as shown, then drill 3mm holes into (but not through) the rear of the two parts, (these are for the slider controls lighting, work out how many you’ll want, this is up to you as is what color’s you choose, all you really need behind the hot/cold slider are white/clear led’s as the front panel is already colored, the blower slide you can add whatever color(s) you want, (blue and red makes a nice effect)
Make up the button led’s by sliding very small bits of heat-shrink to each leg, shrink it and carefully bend the legs so when fitted into the plastic parts they will point at the back of each switch front) a spot of cyno will hold them in place, also cyno in the slider led’s as shown, once dry carefully bend all the led legs in order to connect them up, all negative legs can be soldered together, positive legs will need to have a resistor added FOR EACH COLOR you can add one resistor for say a set of the same color but connecting one resistor to two different colors will result in one of them not working,
How you connect up is a matter of choice and what you find easier, but remember to insulate any wires or led legs that cross over each with heatshrink and remember the space is limited, once all the connections are made on the two separate parts it’s time to check them on a 12v battery in fact check all led’s before you fit them as I’ve had some duff ones out a new pack,
Next you can either run separate feed wires for each clear plastic part or connect them together, once you know all the led’s are working ok click each part back into the casing, you’ll hear a slight “click” as they slot home, once you’ve soldered on the feed wires connect up the battery again and move/ bend carefully the led’heads until your happy that they shine properly onto the back of each symbol, use a non conductive tool to bend or move them if you still connected up to a test battery,
Next run a strip of insulating tape along the connections incase they short on the pcb switch bar when you fit it,, check all buttons are free and able to slide without fouling,
Next refit the blower switch it clicks in place,
Next refit the PCB carefully lower it in place and feed your pos and neg leads out from within through the old bulb hole, use the hole opposite the main slider so the leads wont foul, press the pcb home, again you’ll hear/feel the switches click into place, check all 3 tabs have located and refit the 2 screws, then check each button works as it should, connect up the feeds again and double check everything’s working ok,
Next refit the rear part containing the the main slider and cables, click in place and refit the casing screws,
Bend the socket into place and fit the “U” shaped cover (2 x screws)
Refit the unit into the dash (reverse of removing it) and connect up your added leads to a dash light source (positive) and negative to ground/chassis metal or an existing known ground fixing, check everything’s ok before refitting the dash and you should now have heater controls you can actually see in the dark!!
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