A Few Upgrades

I mentioned recently that I was intent on doing a few things to the car. The first of these was change the washer jets to some mist type washers. This was a necessity as the standard washers were only half working i.e. one out of the two jets on both sides of the car. The Citroen Xsara jets are a common upgrade and now they’re fitted the windscreen now gets a decent amount of water on it.

The other job I was intent on completing was tackling the fact that some of the lights in my dash weren’t working. I decided having read some stuff (although it became apparent not enough) that LEDs were a good upgrade. With a rather gung-ho attitude I ordered a set of eBay which duly arrived so I took the dash apart to fit them to discover that they didn’t fit. The replacements despite being marked as 106 fitment didn’t fit.

So off they went back to the seller and I ordered a replacement set from Crazy LEDs. I went for the Xenon White T5 wedge base push fit LEDs, so you pop out the conventional bulbs from the holders that fasten into the back of the dash and pop these in there place. I also ordered a White 501 type bulb to replace the roof mounted bulb.

Fitted this in its holder first, inserted it back into the car and tested it. Job’s a good ‘un. Cracked on withe the 19 bulbs in the dash. Refitted tested and discovered some things that should have been working aren’t working. Then reality strikes. Let’s not forget what an LED is: a semiconductor diode that emits light when an electric current is applied in the forward direction of the device. As in other diodes, current flows easily from the anode to the cathode, but not in the reverse direction.

Right then so take it all back out, work out which ones are working. Try and work out if there is any marker to signify which pole is which on the bulbs. The only indicator is a voltage rating which seemed to indicate that they only worked a certain way round. Check all the bulbs and change those that don’t line up.

Test again. Now some stuff that was working before isn’t working! I had to tackle each bulb on a one for one basis and remove it and reverse it to get it working. At some point I managed to create a short circuit and blow a fuse in the fuse box (which is until the glove box comes out fairly inaccessible). Anyway after an hour and a half I had as many tested and working as possible and had resorted to putting standard bulbs back in things like the fuel tank empty warning light because there was no way of testing that.

Reassembled the dash (eventually because there was one screw missing when I took it apart and I forgot that putting it back together which meant I was short of screws at the end) and was wholly unimpressed by the difference. My advice save time and money and just stick to the standard bulbs!