I unsoldered the bulbs and soldered new ones into the circuit board, but you could cut the glass off the old bulbs, leaving enough wire to tack solder the new bulbs in place. They are keyed, so line them up- reinstall the radio in the car if you had a tape unit, screw it back in place re-attach the two wire bundles to the main board re-attach the circuit board to the front plastic cover with all the buttons by replacing the five screwsįeed the wires through the chassis, and click the face plate back onto the chassis, engaging all eight tabs holding it tightly against the circuit board, re-bend the six tabs to lock it in place Then it is a matter of putting it back together, which is. You might consider, if one failed, how long till the next one fails. So without embarrassing myself by posting pics of amateur soldering, I'll just say that you can unsolder the failed bulb, and solder in the replacement. (I think the 8640 bulbs are the right size, perhaps T1 1/4, the 2162's are the larger T1 3/4 size) They were too big to fit the little white rubber bulb condoms on. These 74 bulbs are 'T 1 3/4' size, a bit bigger than the bulbs I took out, but still fit ok. They are a wedge base bulb, but there is enough metal wire in the wedge base to bend it to fit the holes for the stock bulbs. In the end what I did was go to the local auto parts store and bought two two packs of '74' bulbs. I also thought about ordering some 2162 bulbs, which are rated at 10,000 hours. (do a google shopping search for 8640 bulb) I thought about ordering some. I did a lot of looking, and so far what I think would be the best match for what is in there is an 8640 bulb.

The only place near me to get a solder-in bulb like that is radioshack, and they have a 12V bulb about the same size, but it's specs make me think it would not be bright enough. There is another thread here that says to use a 12V 100mA bulb. Now, the question is what bulb to use to replace them with. Just grab and pull.ĩ-bulbs.jpg (53.75 KiB) Viewed 35292 times Once you have the radio out of the car, move to a good work area where you won't lose any screws or other parts.The first step to disassembling the radio is to pull the two rotary knobs off. Swapping a radio is pretty easy, it is covered in a number of other threads, but it's basically pull off the trim piece, disconnect the wires on it, then the radio is held in place with four 10mm screws, pull it out, and disconnect the wires off the back (and a wire tie from one of the brackets)If you decide you want to replace the lights inside by yourself instead of replacing the whole radio, then first you have to pull the radio out. A dealer will replace the radio, and send your original one back, so if you go to get it replaced under warranty, be sure to eject the CD or you may never see it again.If you are out of warranty, there are usually some low cost units on ebay. All the bulbs in the factory radios are soldered in place.If the car is still under warranty, the radio should be also.

2005 pontiac vibe red