Never popped a fuse and it works well. I ran the wires straight from the **** to the ash tray wires. I stripped them (it's been a while but I might have cut a connecter off the end of the **** wires to expose them?) and connected them together. Very easy to do and the dimmer also works to control the light from the ****.

Wish I had the car here, I'd take pics for you, but it is an easy job. The only dilemma with this is you have to make sure the **** is screwed down on the gear shifter before you wire it all up or you'll pull the wires lose when you screw on the ****. I guess if you put in a connector, you could always use this to unclip it and avoid the problem.

 

I was going to use the harness so I had a way to disconnect it, otherwise I would never be able to get my panel off if need be without cutting the wires.

 

There should actually be dedicated wiring for the shift indicator lighting on Automatic cars right there next to the shifter.

On First Gens, it's a set of bullet connectors, one male, one female... Lotta people put them together and short them out.

 

This is what I did. The connectors on the harness are incompatible with the FD, presumably because they are for the RX-8. But with a little finagling, I was able to pull the pins out of my ashtray light connector which provides power, pull the pins from one of the connectors on the shift **** harness, and swap the connectors. This leaves me with an RX-8 style connector providing power. I plug this into the shift **** harness which plugs into the shift **** and leaves an FD style connector to plug into the ashtray light. It all works fine, controlled by the dimmer, etc.

One thing is, I think the LEDs are too bright. Yeah they dim with the dimmer ****, but the shift **** is super bright when my dimmer is full on, overpowering compared to the rest of the cluster lighting. And it always remains a couple notches too overpowering as the dimmer is adjusted lower. I'm thinking I might pull the fuse built into the shift **** harness and replace it with an appropriate resistor.

 

^How about taking some pics and posting them? The connector idea is a very good one. And although I like the amount of light from mine, adding a resistor will take of the brightness problem for you.

 

OK. I will leave the details of how to swap the pins as a homework exercise. Suffice it to say there are plastic fingers in the old and new connectors that need to be depressed to release the pins. The old pins don't quite fit in the new connector. I had to squeeze the part of the old pins that crimp onto the insulation to make them smaller and I needed to force them into the new connector. Conversely the new pins are loose in the old connector. I needed to trim the plastic fingers in the old connector about 3/32 inch so they would engage a hole in the new pins to hold them in. Clear?

Even if you decide the pin swapping is too much trouble, the attached pictures show the correct polarities if you wire it up directly or use your own connector:

[EDIT: I used the term "GROUND" in the last picture meaning "LOW". Now I have fixed the picture to use LOW. Actually they are NOT ground. They are just low (but still positive) relative to the positive wire. Most of the circuits on the FD are like this; one side is high all the time and the other side is grounded when needed or in this case variably grounded by the dimmer control. Let me be more clear: POSITIVE = +12 Volts, LOW ~= +4 to +10 volts. Basically even though I originally labeled it as ground (now says low), you do NOT want to touch the chassis with any of these wires.]

 

2nd GB if we get enough interest:

https://www.rx7club.com/fdnewbie-imports-172/gb-interest-illuminated-rx-8-shift-knobs-2nd-gb-705143/

 

rxcited2: Nice pictures and descriptions. Should help a lot with the install. Thanks!

 

Guys quick question.

When I was installing this, the wire from the **** got stuck when twisting it on and got ripped of. Is there any way to open the **** up and reconnect it?

From looking at it doesnt really look like it but just wanted to ask.

 

d33 I think you may be screwed. I've taken the top of the **** off and it looks like the wiring that goes through the **** is held in place by some sorta glue that fills up the rest of that cavity, so pulling the wiring out and fishing new wiring through looks like it may not be possible. Are there any exposed wires left at the bottom at all? If theres not enough left to solder back together you may be out of luck.


On another note, yesterday I got some new LEDs. Tonight I removed the red LED circuitry and replaced it with my own. What do you guys think?

 

Thanks for the insight, I may just use it as an expensive un-illuminated one :P

or sell it as one and get in on the next gb :P

your new color look pretty good !