I noticed one of the bulbs in my J-Gate is out..
No illumination near the upper part (near the P)
The letters are red as needed.

How to access and change this bulb without a major project?

 

The bulbs are not replaceable easily, they are soldered. Disassembly to even see it is a bit of a pain. Basically, unless you want to solder, buy a used gate. See pics of module:

 

Sorry, lights are on the other side of the green board.

 

Thank you..
I'll live with a dead bulb..lol

 

If you change your mind .......................

RadioShack. 272-1154 12v 50mA Bi-Pin.

 

Anthony I recently changed mine. Not too tough with a map ��.

Bulbs: need soldered bulb. Now once I got the bulb number for the soldered bulb in the sport switch. Let's say it is 1cm long. I had a few so planned to use in j gate. When disassembled I was surprised to see they were 0.5cm long (lengths relative not exact). I ignored that and used the longer one, he k the blue condom over the bulb fit fine. Ttytt it gets a bit too hot. Wish I'd used shorter bulb.

How to:

1 remove jgate surround.
2 remove center console
3 disconnect and remove sipped control and sports
4 unscrew j
5 disconnect j gate wire harness. Connector for 1998 is under front left corner of j gate.
6 disassemble j gate. Don't forget screw above " 2" on top of jgate

Have a radio shack desolder wick or a desoldering gun handy to remove bulb. Fine point, not much space.

Let me know if I can help more.

John





Circuit bored contains bulbs. Have desolder wick ready to remove old bulb. Solder gun with fine point.



J gate wire harness on bottom. Disconnect to remove jgate.

 

Moderator, Devon David's part is correct. Maybe we can add it to sticky for bulb reference? Thanks Devon David.

John

 

How many bulbs are there? Is it just the center bulb or are the square things bulbs too?

 

DSD, I just looked at my photo. I only see 2 incandescent bulbs. Wish it was a better photo, I'd have sworn there were 4. Nope just looked at photo, I must have a bad memory. Will look for any better photos.

Don't recall what the square yellow orange items are sorry.


John

 

DSD, proof, only 2 bulbs, the square items look like LEDs. So much for my memory ha ha.

John




Two bulbs, cocered in blue condom. LD#(1-6) Look like Light Emmiting Diodes.

 

I thought they may be LEDs. And completely spaced on the incandescent bulbs. I always assumed issues were an LED went south.

 

My 2003 XKR has no lights of any kind illuminated on the j gate. Should I care ��?

 

It's purely to help you see in the dark. If everything else works, it's your call.

Personally, I'd look at getting it fixed.

 

I changed my bulbs a couple of years ago and it was an absolute nightmare, although things are first time round.


Anyway I've come back to this thread because I noticed tonight that where the P indicator is it isn't very bright and I haven't really noticed this before.


I couldn't remember how many bulbs are on the circuit board and looking at this thread I see there are two and I'm pretty sure both bulbs are working so it must just be a slightly dark patch on the P area.


Also if I was doing this jobs again first time round I would make sure you can obtain a spare J Gate circuit board just in case as it is very tricky, removing it and also removing the bulbs. I ended up resoldering without removing from the car and made a bad connection on the circuit board causing me to rewire one of the bulbs.


Also removing the J Gate surround is an absolute nightmare, you can break the clips and when it is removed there are two metal brackets on either side of the J-Gate. I didn't actually refit these as didn't think it was necessary as only makes the J-Gate surround more difficult to remove if you need to do it again.

 

I replaced my 2 J Gate backlight bulbs last night. I could not find the Radio Shack bulbs that are frequently mention so I used these:
https://www.tme.eu/en/details/l12-12.../brightmaster/

Not a perfect fit but they worked. They are thinner and slightly longer than the originals with the wire leads about 1 mm closer together than ideal. I had to carefully bend outward the wire leads and they could not sit flush on the wafer board. I also had to glue the blue bulb condoms on since the bulbs are thinner. Lights up good on the bench and looks nice. Here’s pics with more detail including dimensions of both the bulbs I used and the radio shack ones I could not locate.









This shows the dimensions of the often-suggested Radio Shack Bulb that I could not find.

 

Update to my previous post just above. It’s been a few years and these bulbs work ok but are a bit taller and run noticeably hotter than I would prefer. 50mA and shorter would be closer to stock.

 

There's no easy way I'm sorry. You have to follow the instructions and know how to use a soldering iron.
Just requires patience