Yeah, I did that too but didn't realise that they were polarity sensitive so I guess that at least half of them won't.
Doh!
i did notice that a couple had the wire on the same side so twisted one of them to the opposite side.

 

Apology accepted
Initially i did not. I just took out the old bulb and tried to put in the new bulb.
because of what you wrote in a different post I did try to remove the metal parts and place it into the original bulb holder

Ok, not sure what a capped or cap-less lamp is but I (think) that I understand that you are saying that the bulb has two wires that make contact with the sides of the bulb holder which in turns make contact with the flexible circuit board.
i understand that perfectly

This is obviously the step which I am missing. So Let me ask my questions.
1)What is the wedge replacement and how do I get it out of the LED bulb holder.
2) How do I get the wedge replacement out of the original holder? Do I just put the bulb out?
Concerns
3) I think that in 1) above you want me to pull out just the led bulb, but there is a resister connected to it.

If I can get passed 2) then this should be easy.

I hope that you can add more . The problem i have with your picture is that the bulbs look light my original bulbs not the new led bulbs. I also do not have that view available on my dashboard when i take it out. I just take out the bulb from the side of the circuit board and do my (wrong) thing with the bulb.
Thank you,
Jomo

 

right

a ' capless ' lamp is a lamp that has no ' cap ' and has open wires that are inserted into a holder, look up a 501 lamp , that is capless ,

an example of a ' capped ' lamp is in your house and is screwed into the lamp holder in your living room, the Edison screw end is the ' cap ' , same for all lamps regardless of the cap design

you now mention ' resistors ' for your LED's ,

this is very old technology for LED units if they are still coming with resistors to allow them to work

newer units have overcome this requirement and all you need to look out for is the polarity of the lamp ( some don't even need polarity now )

the led lamps below are what i used, and work perfectly , they are ' capless '
10PCS T5 286 White LED Wedge Car Dashboard Dash Speedo Cig Lighter Lamp Bulbs UK | eBay

these have a cap adaptor fitted to allow you to use them in the place of normal lamps ( like the fibre optic unit )
2X T11 BA9S T4W 4 SMD LED White Car Side Interior Cap Bayonet Light Lamp Bulb UK | eBay

then these are what i used for the back illumination of the instrument cluster
10x T10 501 W5W 8 LED SMD Xenon White Car Wedge Side Interior Light Lamp Bulbs | eBay

i hope this helps a little

btw, i am an electrician , and it comes easy to me, and its hard to remember sometimes that not everyone instantly grasps my theories

don't let it beat you though

removal of the existing glass capless lamps is simplicity its self, simply get some ' nose pliers ' gently hold the glass lamp end on , and gently pull out directly back towards you , some are tighter than others,
fitting the new lamp is similar, gently hold the LED replacement wedge with the same pliers, and push in,
i tried to make the circuit to work while i was doing this to check that polarity will allow the lamp to work, if it didn't i turned over the lamp before fully inserting it

not all of the lamps for the information warning strip at the top are oriented the same way , so polarity flips depending on the circuit board at the back

trial and error, eventually you get there

the other thing to note is that you have a later car than mine, mine is a 1989 car, and the instruments changed in 1992 , it seems from looking at the drawings that all of your lamp holders are removed from the back of the cluster, you will then remove the existing glass lamp as above and insert the LED into the holder and place that back into the back of the cluster ( you may not need the nose pliers )



BB

 

I bought the same bulbs that SouthernGypsy advised us to buy from superbright and they do have resistors in them. I will check to see if the bulbs from China have resistors or not. If you look at the picture posted by SG (I'll try to post it repost it below) you will clearly see that he is using the bulb holder from superbright and not the original holders from Jaguar. I will try what you are saying. If anyone with my style XJS has done the mod then cam you please state how you got it to work?
Thanks,
Jomo

 

BB,
I tried just pulling out the light (or whatever it is called) from the bulbs from China but the whole assembly comes out with it. I think that you are saying that these bulbs are like some of the side marker bulbs-with the wires on the side and when you push the bulb into the socket it makes contacts with the bulb holder. These bulbs are just not that way. Check out the pictures of the bulbs on the websites. https://www.superbrightleds.com/more...-led/223/1037/
and Wholesale Product Snapshot Product name is Free shipping 10XFree shipping Car Auto LED T5 B8.5D 1 led smd 5050 Wedge LED Light Bulb Lamp 1SMD White/Green/Blue/Red/Yellow
Thanks,
Jomo

 

just had a quick look , and yes, that is a whole complete lamp

you should pull the complete unit from your dash , and twist in this LED unit....if they don't work then turn them 180 degs , if they still don't work , get ur money back


BB

 

Jomo and I have the exact same car.

I bought the same lights as SouthernGypsy. I had no problems other than what I expected:

*I had to experiment with the polarity to get them all to work. Some bulbs go one way and some are opposite.
*I had to leave the factory bulbs in the check engine, /1st, and Sport. With the LED's they stayed lit.
*I had to use needle-nose pliers to twist and remove the factory bulbs and to install the LEDs. Some are tighter than others.

All the LEDs work. I really only cared about the parking brake light LED so I could see it illuminated with the top down. And now I can! The other bulbs were just a bonus for me.

I bought colored LEDs so I had to use a flash light to see which color bulbs went where.

I regret not taking any pictures of the project as I was doing it. I would have posted them. Sorry about that!

My next project might be the air conditioning lights. Some are burnt out and all are dim. If anyone has done that, is it easy? I don't even know how to remove the panel or if I should get the same LEDs.

 

BB, In theory the bulbs work as all you have to do is give them 9 volts or more. I tried each and every bulb with a 9 volt battery and they worked. The only time they will not work is when they are not given any volts like when they do not make contact with the circuit board on my dash board. I would have returned all of them from SuperBrite but I removed the inserts to put into the original sockets as that was what I thought you meant after realizing that just the bulb did not come out and now they will not take it back,
I was hoping that someone could help me out with something. Somehow one of the dashboard lights fell out while I was driving and I just can't find it anywhere. Not the lights I tried to replace but the bigger sockets/bulbs. I am sure that while working on getting the LEd lights to work I must have loosened this socket. Does any one have an extra one that I can use. I went to discount auto parts but they did not have a good replacement.
Thanks,
Jomo

 

Just refitted my instrument panel with replacement speedo, tacho and LED bulbs and sod all works properly.
I fitted it previously and most of the bulbs didn't work as I hadn't realised that they were polarity sensitive; anyway took them all out, checked polarity, traced the circuits and replaced them again.
Put it back in and the bulbs seem to work fine, however........
Rev counter only goes up to 500 rpm unless I switch the lights on and then it hops up to about 800 and stays there.
Speedo doesn't work at all.
Temperature gauge instantly pegged itself at just above N and won't move.
Oil pressure and fuel level gauges shoot straight to the top and stay there.
Battery gauge dits about a bit but it was doing that before.
No indication of hazard warning lights but that the indicators flash in normal use.
Annoying seat belt warning light is still on but brighter now!
I'm off to work for a week now and taken the panel with me to play with but anyone got any ideas?

 

Steve,

With that many issues, it sounds like the main block connections to the cluster that are playing up.

Paul

 

you may need to add a supplementary ground strap ,the existing one is a known issue and when there is a problem each circuit does its best to get back to ground and that can be through anything in its path giving bad readings etc

BB

 

Thanks guys. I can't figure out why it was fine before (other than the odometer) and now isn't, especially the centre gauges as all I did with them was slack off the screws one at a time and spray contact cleaner on them.
is there a central 'brain' anywhere that runs the gauges or are they all direct feed?
I think all the lights are correct now but how come the rev counter changes when I switch the main lights on and off? Would a dodgy earth cause that? I can only see one multi earth point which is just in front of the right hand column support nut; are there any more?
It is especially annoying as this is just phase one of 3 (new headlining and steering wheel to fit) so the other jobs will be held up whilst I sort this out.
It worked fine on the scabby cabby when I did it, no problems at all.

 

I decided that I just had to have at least the emergency brake light brighter so out came the dash yet again. It was painful but I got the bulb from China to work. It looked just a little brighter than the other bulbs but that lasted only a few days when it was only as bright as the other lights. So out came the dashboard again and this time I but in a bulb from super bright. Again it was not easy at all to get the bulb to make contact with the circuit board but in the end it did. I would never do what I did for all the bulbs. This time the bulb is much much brighter and I think that when springtime comes and I lower my top it will be bright enough to see the e-brake light. Basically I but tin foil between the bulb and the circuit board to take up the space and now I have good contact. I can only assume that either my circuit board is thinner than others who tried this easy fix successfully or that the opening for the bulb is thinner on my dashboard. Very strange as the original bulbs work just fine. Are there multiple part numbers for that bulb?
Jomo

 

The gauges are all direct feed Steve and are not connected except by common earths. The current draw is TINY on the gauges, the current path to them amazingly convoluted and indirect, and it needs nearly nothing to mess them up. Even contact cleaner can cause a malfunction if it remains damp. The Great Palm is very sound on ensuring the connections within and to the supplementary gauges are properly conductive, well worth doing the desperately fiddly fixes he describes! A joyous 4 hours on a white tabelcloth should do it!

The earths from these gauges are also pretty convoluted, and it is very easy to put the blue "circuit board" back in such a way that the earth is not actually attached at all. There is a steel strip across top back of the cluster that carries the earth to the multiplugs, and the because all the little washers screws etc etc that hold it can easily go back in the wrong order, you find the non-conductive side of the blue circuit board is against the earth strip. I made this mistake and got the exact same symptoms you describe: no supplementary gauges working!

If the copper strips on the blue board that carry the earth are not properly connected to the metal bar, or the connection is iffy, then the current changes inthe blue board caused by dash lights going on and off will feed back into the earth circuit of the tacho and change the reading.

So what I suggest is trace all the earths from each instrument to the blue board, from there to the steel strip and from there to the multiplug, looking for breaks and carefully roughing up the copper where ever a connection is made. Check that the feeble copper spring contacts in the multiplugs are not pushed back and so not contacting the blue board copper, and that the copper contacts on the board where the plugs make contact are not cracked or broken off. Then as others have mentioned, a separate extra earth from the steel strip directly to a suitable bolt. BUT an extra earth will not help until you are 100% sure that pathway to the steel strip is 100%

I had so much trouble with my multiplug/blue board interface that I very seriously considered directly rewiring all the instruments! In the end I persevered and got it all working. You were just lucky with the Cabriolet...

Greg

 

Thanks Greg, that's kinda what I figured.
I was really careful the 2nd time to make sure that all that contacts were good and the cleaner had several days to dry before I refitted it.
I did notice with the LED bulbs that if the two wires were not exactly parallel to the body of the holder then they wouldn't make contact so no circuit.
I'm going to take it apart again just to see if I can get the temperature gauge to move as it is stuck in the middle at the moment for some reason.

 

Ok, a bit of improvement.
The temperature gauge is moving freely now, I had somehow managed to bend the needle slightly whilst refitting so it was sticking to the gauge (finesse has never been a strong point of mine, think'bull ' and 'china shop').
Had a good look at the connections to the earth strap and removed the folded over one with the additional one sleeved in (photo 1).
I had refitted it with both sections on top of the bar but (much) closer inspection revealed that the folde over feed is plastic coated on the top all the way round so when fitted as I did (photo 2) it wasn't making contact.
It should be folded and fitted beneath the earth strap (photo 3) not on top of it; the extra feed can go above or below as there is no plastic on either side.
Have to wait till Wednesday now to see if it works.
Be prepared for a tantrum!

 

Steve
That is EXACTLY the thing that I did, and tried to describe in my last post! I trust you brightened up the copper with some fine grit paper ? I did the bent needle bit too! Congrats

Greg

 

It will be disappointing not to have 100psi oil pressure and an ever full fuel tank!

 

Posted this in the wrong bit!
Ok, so I may be making progress here, we live in hope. Found a slightly cracked track on the ribbon (repaired with Heated Screen repair paint) and an earth track that had folded over and was touching a live feed; that one probably explains the rev counter. Could someone post some pictures or describe which lights should come during the starting sequence?
1] Ignition on 2] cranking and 3] engine running and then I can see if I have got it right this time.
I know that the ignition, battery and oil pressure lights should come on initially but what about the ABS light?

 

Steve
Let to right:
Battery; oil, low water, lamp-out warning light, lightning bolt-shaped overcharge light, seatbelt if not done up yet. I do not have ABS but on all the other cars it comes on with the ignition while it does its test thing.

Greg