Ok time for a more detailed write-up (I'm at work now - im such a slacker!!):
Tools needed:
maybe a mini-light
1 philips screw driver
flat head screw driver (the smaller the better)
fine tip soldering iron & solder
some honda light bulbs or
radio shack, buy some 12 volt super tiny lights with 2 wire leads on them, polarity doesn't matter.
needle nose pliers
OK, here's what was goin on:
The lights in my heating control unit weren't working. None of the buttons for air flow/defog-recirc-a/c would light up. The leves for heat/fan speed would but on top of that, when I selected between heat / vent / vent/heat the motor wouldn't go all the way and change the direction of air flow.
In some ramblings of other posts I made here somebody mentioned I might have to re-solder some switches beneath the buttons .. I'm glad they told me this because it fixed it.
So I took apart the dash for this you need to :
Take off all the screws around the bottom of the center console around the shifter, and up under the heating control there are 2 screws also. The shift boot and knob will have to be removed as it needs to be completely out of the way. This was super hard to do on my car ... to do this I had to hold the boot (if you want to pry it with a screw driver good luck, but do it ABOVE the silver ring) I held the boot with my hands on front and back of it and leaned ALL of my body weight on the boot and it popped off. You may have to bounce a bit to get it but im pretty light. Then unscrew the shift knob and lift that plastic piece out of the way. You may want to cover thsi with a towel or something because I dropped 2 screws and had a ***** of a time getting them out of the shifting components, they slid right under the shifter.
Then, you will have to remove the 4 screws holding in the mounting bracket for the stereo and tray and take those right out as you need to get at a couple of screws underneath there to remove the heating control unit. you should now be looking at a bunch of metal, couple cables a bare shift boot and see 2 more screws underneath the heating control unit, take those out.
Now for the tricky part.. WATCH FOR WHERE THESE FALL!!
You should be able to wiggle the control unit with the center vents above it somewhat, it won't come out yet, underneath a few inches back there is a cold colored screw, take this out and it should almost come out .. there is one more screw you need to take out, its holding the cable for the heat/cool temperature control and there is a metal clip type thing holding the insulator to the cable that slides inside it. (Make note how this is hooked up) Underneath you could probably use a flash-light to help ya out, but I managed without one.
There are 2 plugs going into the bottom, just reach in and feel around with with your hands upt he cables for the push-in piece that frees the plug, theres a green one and a brown one. The green one is for the lights, ac, recirc, air flow direction, defog etc. The brown one is only for the fan speed.
This is where I wish I had pictures because its hard to decide, once you undo the last screw with the clamp holding the cable to the heat control, you can dislodge the unit with the vents and pull it out of the dash, the cable will still be hooked up and on the bottom its got a plastic piece that slides back and forth for heat, there is 2 plastic posts so to speak and on the end of the temp. cable is an eyelet of a sort, that pushes/pulls the cable. There is a metal piece thats all sticky greasy underneath that you need to bend the plastic piece to get that eyelet off of the post. Don't be too forceful bending this piece, it would suck breaking it - then the unit comes right out. YIPEE!
Now you can leave the car with this piece and go into the house where its warm and theres space to work with.
So lets have a look, on the top, there are 2 little white plastic screw looking things, these are the lights. There's another one on the bottom between the brackets where the vents go into.. g'head, take it out and look at it .. cute and cheap lil bugger isn't it? ... Its got a light bulb in a plastic base and it has wires wrapped on either side, these twist in and make contact with the circuit board lighting them up ..
If you notice, it looks like you can unwrap the wires around the plastic base and just change the light, this may be so .. but i couldnt find lights with long or thin enough leads to do this. so much for recycling the little lights ( I can take a picture of the light bulb but thats it
.. I'll do this later.) The odd thing is, they didn't look burnt out .. but they definately were.
This is where I went to radio shack, then canadian tire, then to part source, then to the dealership. Nobody had the factory lights except honda who had to order them and wait 5 days and pay 7bux/piece. There's 3 in the dash, 3 in the cruise switch unit .. 6 lights .. 42bux ? .. HAH! never. If you want to wait for the lights, skip all of this below and just twist em in .. if the vents don't work, skip to the bottom ..
I opened up the rest of the control unix, I removed the vents by taking off the 2 screws holding the vents in, they slide out (remember for re-assembly, the tabs go INSIDE those slots). The vents are holding the climate control by flush clips all around, I think I eventually used muscle and broke a couple of them to get it off, it still holds secure but if you want to take the delecate approach, pry the tabs off 1 at a time very delicately and remove the casing around the climate control.
I may have missed a couple of screws in here somewhere because im going by memory, but you can find them all. After the 2 black screws taking out the vents, everything should be easy.
I think on the sides behind the buttons there are 2 screws on either side, another one fo ra light bult, take those out and then pry off the buttons, this is where the fun begins ... slide the circuit board out of the plastic housing..its just a plain circuit board with easy to work with solder points on the back of the board, the top is super fun .. oh wait, I forgot about one piece.. when you pull off the front flap you'll see a little cord going up to a light fixture, make sure this is loose and unscrewed you dont want to mess that piece up, .. fix-able sure but .. just dont break it. The top looks really cool, they have 2 plexi glass kinda things forked out to bend the light in front of all the buttons and then all the black switches etc. The led's inside that turn green when things are selected are inside there but i wasn't able to take them off.. didn't need to so .. if your looking for that, look in there. g'luck (take pictures and do a write-up addition to this)
Now, what i did with those radio shack light bulbs because I didnt want to pay so much or drive around with my car in pieces for a few days is took the 2 wire leads and I bent them outwards about half way up with needle nose pliers (this can be avoided if you want to get the dealier ship lights) now, where the lights plug into are 2 very visible copper connectors .. I went into the car with the bare circuit board and plugged it in the car and played with everything .. I took the light and pressed it on the connectors and with accessory and boom, there was light. started flipping all the switches, air flow was changing it was all good .. i figured the plug was just dirty and so i slid it on and off a buncha times to clean the connects with friction... back into the house .. i soldered all the light bulbs onto the circuit board, .. It took a while to heatup the rings, but for soldering newbies what you want to do is press the copper ring with the iron with the wire against it from the light so it heats up, then on the other side of if you press the solder and it melts when its hot enough .. i suck at soldering but just be satisified it won't move with age in the car. This is where I went back into the car, all the lights lit up, i started pushing buttons but the lights started to flicker .. it was loose where the plug fastened to the board ... back into the house I go to try something out of desparation to make my vents consitently work.. under the plug I heated and added a bit of solder to all the wire connections, the plug after this went in more snug but it worked. everything was awesome..
I threw it all back together and I have been driving with lights since. Radio shack was sold out of 12v lights (they only had 3) so I haven't done the switch on the cruise control side yet but i'm sure i'll do the soldering the same way .. the only thing that gets me is I've heard a blue light is needed so ... guess we'll see.
I'll have pics for that , i promse :P
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