so after reading all the posts and looking at things and a sleepless night, here's what i got: in the original configuration current passes through the indicator light seeking a ground. to my limitted knowledge this is, by definition, a short, right? since light bulbs operate by converting electrical energy into heat energy, they also act as resistors? this resistance (a) kept the current down a bit, and (b) makes bulbs harder to light than, say, LEDs. how'm i doin' so far? so...whatever current managed to make its way past the indicator, though insufficient to light the bulbs on the opposite side of the circuit, is adequate to light the indicator? but since the current requirements of LEDs are rilly rilly not very big, this "leak" is more than sufficient to light them?
i read and rethunk things over and came up withe the idea that installing the resistors would only serve to recreate a set of circumstances that allowed the whole system to function despite what was essentially a flaw. besides, the resistors are kinda ugly and i rilly don't want to chop the nice shiny Vizi-tec harness. it seems the problem is that current was being allowed to travel in the wrong direction. so its a question of how to correct this issue and keep the current on the right path. i'm not 100% sure, but i think the English words
correct,
right, and di
rection all come from the Germen
rechts. so i decided the best idea was to
rectify the situation. lol. i got a pair of diodes at R-Shack (1N4001), some shrink tube, and some solder then got to work.
first step was to (gasp!!) disassemble (no disassemble jonny5) the instrument cluster. here's that:
then i snipped and stripped both wires from the signal indicator light (white/green and white/black) and one black wire (they're all good). i twisted one of the leads from the bulb to the ground, then connected each (+) lead (anode) from the diodes to the leads coming from the wiring harness and twisted the remaining lead from the bulb to the (-) leads (cathode) or both diodes.
here's my schema:
and here's the test assembly:
before making it official with solder and shrink tubing i brought the whole mess out to the garage, borrowed a pair of hands, hooked it up, and tested it. i'm a fn genius. it worked.
the rest of these pics are pretty self explanatory:
i could've snipped a wire or pulled the bulb like i said (pssssst. i tried it w/o the bulb and it worked. lol), but because of all the feedback i got on here i did it the not so easy, but betterer way and i am pretty freakin proud of myself rite now, but i owe a big thanx to all who steered me away from the wrong direction.
