JW- do you actually NEED adjustable pedals? In my opinion only short people (mostly ladies) need 'em. I had 'em on my '02 (only because the were on the truck I chose) and I never used 'em. I'm only 5'10" and I kept 'em down all the way.

 

Sorry, my error.

 

Don't think A dealer is gonna make any money on a $3. pack of bulbs do you? The writers get paid on how much service they sell and $600. beats $3. any day!
I worked in dealerships and apologies to you who do have a clue, but 80% of 'em couldn't find their fanny with both hands. They're SALESMAN, what do you expect. Not a lot of brain surgeons among 'em.

 

this is a real problem on the 98-2003 trucks, and I read somewhere a post showing a fix, it was not the light bulb but on these trucks the actual printed circut has a poorly soldered place near the bulb circut. I will try to find and add that fix, mainly once removed the circut break was obvious to the eye, and the guy used a soldering pencil, anything else will be way too hot, and dabbed a small bit of solder there and fixed it. I remain needing to fix mine, but with pover 260k on it now I kinda hate to look at times, I need to fix it so I dont have to keep a count of fill-ups to monitor oil changes and such, so I will and post pics also, probably in a couple weeks. thanks for your post!

 

Just repaired/Replaced bulb in My '08. Took about 30 minutes, (including 3 phone interruptions), and went perfectly. 1 screw in bottom of steering column cover, 2 screws in panel under column, pry gently to remove panel. Next, carefully pry cover from top of steering column. It has a cord holding it, so let it dangle. 2 screws in upper cover, pry gently and the cover will lift off. Look on right side of steering column, There is a white plastic piece, that has a Torx screw in the top. It anchors the red cable that works the shift indicator. Remove screw, which will give you enough slack to unhook the loop on the red cable. (Once you look, it's pretty obvious)
Remove electrical cables (2) from cluster.
remove 4 screws on corners of cluster. Remove cluster. Bulbs are removable by twisting right (CCW with wiring plugins facing you, with face of cluster down, Illumination lite for the LCD display is Grey and on the right lower area.
Reverse to re install. Re-hooking the red shift indicator cable will most likely invoke a few expletives, but it is do-able.

 

[QUOTE=Jeff T;4079106]Replaced the bulb in my odometer cluster today and boy is it nice to have a light there again at night! About an hour and a $1.50 bulb to repair. Like someone else posted I pulled a turn signal bulb out to test it and it worked!!

Now how pissed should we all be?? I'm not the only one told by the dealer that the "ONLY" fix was a new instrument panel cluster to the tune of $600. Are service departments completey unaware of the repair or would Ford rather sell instrument panel clusters??

I sent the Service Adviser at my dealership an email and he knows how PO'd I am. I'll be curious to see if I get a reply...

Thanks to 04F150supercrew for posting the link with the pics and directions, it really made it simple!

So according to my math I know have $597 to spend on other things, I bought a two pack of bulbs at $3.[/QUOTE


Sorry about that. I got the bulb, took 10 minutes start to finish!!!!! You don't even have to take it all the way out. just remove 2 screws on the bottom dashplate, then 2 on the top plate, pull up and out to release the clips holding it in place, then just unplug the 2 connectors from the top of the cluster, remove the 4 screws that hold the cluster in, tilt it towards you from the top and reach over it down to the Grey light holder, twist to remove and replace it!!!!
I will be visiting the Ford dealership to show my irritation at them trying to milk all that money for such an easy job!!! I know they are in business to make money, but this would be just downright highway robbery.

 

I just repaired mine tonight, took all of 20 minutes being careful, need 7mm nut driver or socket for 2 lower panel screws, two upper panel screws, and 4 screws holding inst cluster in. Undo two connectors, pull cluster out, use small Torx for just three screws and replace bulb .... gray base is odemoeter info center back light. I also worked on my cup of coffee.

I had gotten my part numbers off the net and so .... knowing there were two wattages used, black base and gray base .... I visited my local Ford dealer who's parts person said it was a 194 .... "NOT" ....
.... and then they said they've never replaced a bulb in an 04-08 odometer LC Display.

Next week I was in Roanoke, Va. at Magic City, they knew the bulbs were different but did not have any currently in stock. The black base bulbs were near $6 each and came ind, the gray base ones came in boxes of 4 at over $6 each he said. I politely said I thought I'ld order from my local dealer.

I came home, searched the net and found my best prices at Varsity Ford Parts ( http://www.partswebsite.com/varsityfordparts/) and they were ...

Black socket ones(dial illumination or backlight) YL3Z13B765CA (shipped individ see-thru wrapper)

and

Gray socket ones (indicator illumination and odometer back light) YL3Z13B765DA (shipped in box of 4, priced each)

UPDATE: .... found out today (060112) that my gray socket bulb YL3Z13B765DA is a #73 1.1 watt bulb inserted in the gray base, you can replace just the bulb. Not sure yet about the black ones as I haven't opened them up.

 

this has been a longstanding issue from the 1998 model change....there lights going bad isn't the hard part, but easily recognized when the odometer simply doesn't lite up...the usual problem is flickering or intermittent display of the odometer/trip meter miles
this is from a known weak solder point on the Ford printed circuit, and there are quite a few threads around here and other sites like the Harley-Davidson owner's site which show the fix, taking the unit out and using a soldering pen to re-heat and correct the poor contact. My 2000 F150 has been doing this since it was almost new, and now after over 300k miles I guess one day I'll fix mine too.sure the Ford house will tell you all about the LED bulbs.irreplaceable, which is not true, they are just no designed to be replaced, they sell those tiny bulbs, one just has to dismantle the item and cut and solder them in, people are making huge money doing such to the temperamental climate control units which fail lighting up making it almost impossible to set the things, those retailing for 6-800 bucks at the ford house yet people are fixing them and selling them as rebuilt on ebay for 200 bucks.using a 3 dollar led repair kit. So.
if the light just never works then try the lamp back light, usually fixes it all,,,if it is intermittent then removal of the unit and soldering the weak point will fix the odomerter..do not use a regular soldering gun those are way way too hot and will fry the board.believe me I have seen the evidence from some who have tried...good luck.D.

 

just did it to my 05. the bulb i got was a little bigger. used a 74 i got from o'reilly's for $4.50. the upper part of the bulb was a little bigger but it fit in the gray socket still and lit up nice and bright when i tried it out. didn't even need to take off the lower part of the steering column cover. i figured with as little current that is going through that bulb a minute difference in size shouldn't affect it too much. we'll see how it holds up. thanks for the thread, that was bugging the crap out of me!

 

Thx. Mine is the same way. Looks like an EBay idem. Or a stick on blue light to shine on it be cool too. But thanks for the info good or bad

 

you can also get em at
http://www.speedometerbulbs.com/coll...rd-gm-chrysler

we have the best price in the internet! for all your ford speedometer bulb needs
thank you
-Bryan