Hey guys,

Hope everyone is well and enjoyed a good New Year and Crimbo!

Right, down to business! I have bought myself a very nice set of blue plasma dials from eBay (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWNX:IT), I got the dials on all nice and easy and stuck them in place with a bit of double sided tape.

I followed most of the steps in a thread I found on here but not all, as I had removed my 'clocks' completely and my car is a 98 so slightly different (https://www.scoobynet.com/interior-15...s-classic.html). Problems is I can't get the damn things to light up! Does anyone know where I can earth the black wire for them too...also I'm assuming the live wire for the Cigarette Lighter light is the red one not the red/green one.

Any help on this would be fantastic as I thoguht it would be a nice quick job but have ended up with a set off dials I can't see at night!!

Thanks

Stiggy Joe

 

right this is how i did mine: sorry no photos available, trace the main dial bulbs (501 capless) supply/earth circuit on the back of the unit/cluster/clock assy to whichever plug they are fed from and use a multimeter to attain positive and negative pins and then just piggyback the plasma kit into them, that way they will be wired into the proper lighting circuit for the clocks and work off of the normal lighting switch job done .

 

Stigs, if you don't have a multimeter, nip to a carshop and buy a circuit tester.
The type you want has a brass or plastic body with a bulb in it, a sharp point at one end and a lead terminating in a crocodile clip at the other.
The croc clip goes to earth, the sharp point is used to touch onto suspected live, or pierce insulation thereon.

 

Awesome, that's helped out...however, they still do not light up. I connect them straight to the battery and all that happened is the transformer made a noise that got louder the 'brighter' i set the lights...but still no illumination!

I guess there must be something faulty in the unit?

 

And you tried them connected both ways?

 

When I did mine I used a live and an earth on the speedo looms - but being a newage it might be slightly different.

 

I didn't try it both ways as I got a multimeter and found which ones to use (it's the connection on the fair left and fair right of the left and right connections for future reference, on a 98 wagon at least) but I tried it on the battery and just got a noise from the transformer but no lights on the dials (basically removed the lot and plug it straight into battery) I wouldn't think the whole thing needs to be wired in properly as this is just for lights on the new dials...

 

If it's not working straight across a battery, I'd be contacting the seller.

 

Yup, alreasy done that. Just sucks, I had about 5 other bits to do today before I dump her in the garage tomorrow...now she's without most of the dash/centre console and I won't be able to do anything until next weekend

Oh well, at least I know now! Thanks for your help guys!

 

It happens. Mine was in bits for weeks.

 

Ditto, I'm waiting for my flocked centre console to come back so I can get it back together and MOT'd

 

Right, well...everything has arrived and the car is now back together looking all good...plus I have managed to get the clock blue and the *** lighter so everything now matches the stereo and looks pretty hot!

 

Stigs! How easy were these to fit and which way did you wire them in?

 

They were a nice simple fit, just get dials over old ones and stick down with some double sided tape.

Then while you got the dial clock out hook the live wire to the purple one on the right hand plug (should be furthest wire to right with the 'release' clip at top) then hook the negative to the orange (i think) wire (should be furthest wire to left on the left plug with the 'release' clip at top) and boom, wire up power pack to dials, fit it all back in and away you go.

i just cut the desired wires, stripped them a bit and bullet clipped it all together. I was a bit slack and didnt take photos for reference though...

 

Cheers for this fella.

 

my brother had some of these for his car, they worked fine for about a week then they just stopped working, when he contacted the person he bought them off he said that the transformer is very sensetive and the slightest change in power to the transformer can blow it , now hes got to wait for a new transformer to be sent out, they also advised him to fit a fuse between the power wire and the transformer to provent power surge