Disclaimer - Please note I only recommend professionals undertake any work on vehicles. Spdkilz.com is not liable for any damage or harm that may come from the use of instructions given in the following how-to section(s).

 

. : List of Materials Needed : .
(1).  Nineteen LED's (3mm)	(2).  Wire Cutters or Scissors
(3).  T-15 Star Bit	(4).  5mm (I think) Socket
(5).  Solder	(6).  Solder Gun

 

(click on pictures for larger versions)

 

Read Me: I was not even planning on doing this tech tip.  In actuality it is not a very good one.  I did not do a step by step process for this, and am merely including this on my site to help give direction to those who may want to try this.  To be honest, I would not recommend doing this.  I have had a decent amount of experience with soldering over the years, but this project takes the cake on hardness level.  It was a pain to do, and I actually spent over six hours completing this project.  However, the end results make it all worth while.
(1).  The first thing to do is remove your instrument panel.  I will save the space here and just link you to another section of my site that shows you how to do this: (Click Me To See How To Remove Your Instrument Panel).
(2).  With the instrument panel removed you have access to the HVAC.  Get your T-15 star bit and unscrew the two screws on the side of the HVAC.
(3).  After the screws are removed, there is a plug on the back of the HVAC.  Push in on the plug and remove the unit from the car.
(4).  With the HVAC out of the car, you can begin taking it apart.  There are four 5mm screws (I believe they are 5mm - I forget and am not about to tear my dash apart to check, heh).  Use your 5mm socket and remove these screws.
(5).  On the inside of the HVAC there are two separate circuit boards, and four more 5mm screws.  Remove the four screws so you can pull the one circuit board off of the back of the HVAC.
(6).  With the other four 5mm screws removed, gently turn the back part of the HVAC over and let the circuit board slowly fall away from the HVAC.  You will notice that the newly freed circuit board is connected to the other circuit board via a small plug.  Carefully disconnect the plug from the circuit board.
(7).  This is where things become difficult.  With the other circuit board now separated, there is one circuit board left.  Gently pull up on it and you will expose the light sources of the HVAC.  There are nineteen different lights: five LEDs and eleven 12v lights.  As you can see in the picture, there are also two plugs leading from the knobs of the HVAC to the circuit board.  These were soldered on.  There was no easy way to take them off.  Thus, I opted to cut the wires leading from the knobs to the circuit board. [Note]  You do NOT need to cut the wires leading to the knobs.  Thanks to a fellow Corvetteforum.com member (Josh, a.k.a. TorchedTexan) for clearing up this issue.  "One note for anyone trying to do this, you don't have to cut the wires to the knobs. If you pull them off there are some nuts that hold the control switches on. Once you unscrew those (they are like the nuts that hold oldstyle two knob radios in place) you can pop the controls out and spare yourself re-attaching 10-12 wires."    This made working on the HVAC quite a bit easier.  If you choose to cut the wires, be sure to remember which one goes where (label them).   Now comes the task of heating up the backside of the circuit board so as to remove the factory bulbs.  This is done by using your soldering gun and heating up the leads to each bulb.  Heat them up until you see the solder beginning to liquefy, then pull the bulb out.  This next part may be a bit confusing.   For the LEDs, when you take them out you will notice a small (-) symbol next to where they were soldered in.  When you put in your new LEDs, you will put the new LED in the same way (put the smaller lead in where the (-) symbol is.  When you put the LEDs in you do not need to use resistors, because the circuit board is already set up to limit the power going to the factory LEDs.  However, when you replace the factory 12v lights, you will need to use resistors.  Also, when you take the factory bulbs out, you will notice that their two leads go up and down on the circuit board (if you look at the picture to the right, the bulbs will go up and down not side to side).  Therefore, in the picture to the right, when the bulbs are removed the positive lead for the LED MUST be facing the bottom.  This is imperative.  LEDs have polarity, therefore if you put them in the wrong way they will not light up.  With all that done (hopefully I did not lose you) you will not have nineteen LEDs on your circuit board, looking a bit haphazard.
(8).  Here is a picture with fourteen of the nineteen LEDs lit up (the other five LEDs will only light up when you reconnect everything).  It is extremely bright.  Now, I again didn't document the last few steps.  After everything is said and done I had to re-solder the wires I cut.  This was another pain because the wires were so short in length.  I then reassembled the HVAC.  The LEDs look like they are randomly bent in different directions in the picture.  In reality, they are purposefully done that way, to spread the glow around.  I spent a good hour trying to get the LED glow to be as even as I could (when you put it back into the HVAC there were dark spots and bright spots...I carefully positioned the LEDs to give an even glow).
(12).  The final product.
Final Thoughts: As stated, I do not recommend doing this.  Granted it looks great in the end, this could be a costly mistake if something goes wrong.  I ran into a few problems, thought I had fried the circuit board, and was tempted to give up a few times.  It still is not 100%, however if I ever need to re-do it I now know the proper process.  I hope this tech tip helped you guys try to figure out the inner workings of your HVAC.  Good luck, and don't blame me if you break something, heh!
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