I can feel the message so hard. This last week, for an instant the dash lights and speedometer worked on my car, thay haven't worked since we bought the thing for a stipend, so seeing that, I was resolved to troubleshoot my way through this new project I found before myself.

I was always into computers, and did a god amount of work, putting them together, troubleshooting them, finding solutions to hardware and software issues. **However,** I was completely ignorant about cars in *anything* but the most basic physics of how an engine does work. 
In comes that f-word. I had to have faith, not only in myself, but in the information I was finding for my old Japanese late 90's coupe. After some research I found the bulb replacements, a speedometer replacement, and a couple of tear-downs to plan for what lay ahead.

The parts were supposed to come in this last Saturday, but only the bulbs did. The now speedometer cluster was delayed to Monday. Undeterred I set forth in my dash tear-down to at least replace the bulbs. I went with LEDs, because the halogens were very dim when they did come on, and I had hardly noticed they were working that night they suddenly came and went. After making sure the battery was unplugged and the air bag system had enough time to power down, I ripped into the dash, disconnected the cluster, and went about replacing the bulbs one by one. I knew that LED's were sensitive to which direction they are plugged into the socket so I expected to have to repeat the process multiple times te get the desired lighting with a really slow A-B selection process (like the optometrist 'is A better or B? A.... B.....') involving a reassembly and connection, reconnect the battery, try the lights, disconnect battery, wait 5 minutes, disconnect cluster to refit the bulb, and repeat. Wasn't the most efficient, but it worked!

The next day and the new/old speedometer came in, one last quick disassembly (I was like a NASCAR pit-crewman at that point), four screws, reassemble, reconnect and test later around the block, and for the first time, I had a car completely (almost) repaired to expected working condition.

I need a dome light, and a couple new headlights wouldn't hurt, and I'll have it up to full working order, aside from AC problems and other minor things like a radio.

**I guess my point was, I had to have faith to even take the first step in that adventure, and all the way through, that what I was doing was correct and that the information provided to me was accurate and credible, and that I was skilled enough to do it all without any major incident.**

*For all of that I was blessed*, but then this morning the other car started having major electrical issues (non-existent turnover,and full power outage when you tried, until you wiggled terminal connection wires, rinse wash repeat) THAT ONE, will have to go to the pros!

###### I'm sorry for the wall of text, but if you made it this far, thanks for listening, I needed to get that off my chest.

edit: here's a picture, after the lights were in, but before the speedo was replaced![IMG_0223.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/DQma4u8ZcBjYawgqyT7Y9mDyTCMXmqGRgw8DqNmr7dCHE2W/IMG_0223.JPG)