When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
When you pull the center console cover off you'll discover that some GM engineer designed our automatic transmission indicator to have two small lights illuminating the PRNDL display but for some reason only one bulb was installed. I smell the accounting department weighing in on this decision. Anyway, your indicator has two light socket holes as shown here but only one is used:
These light holes are the size of your old instrument panel bulbs but you need a pigtail'd connector, not a twist-in so a quick trip to the local junk yard and I found one old 1985 Chevy S-10 with this socket in the dash feeding the HVAC controller. A quick snip at the junkyard and another quick solder job at home and I have two lights now, converted to LED matching the dash. The picture looks HORRIBLE and it looks fantastic in person, wish I could get the picture to look as good as it does in person. Highly recommend if you find yourself into the center console to take the time and add back what some engineer somewhere thought we needed. I wish I would done this 20 years ago now. Get some lithium grease and give your shifter some love while you're there, too. My pointer indicator had faded so a quick spray brought the color back. Fun weekend project.
this one bulb issue comes up from time to time. not 100% positive, but most likely it was designed to be used in both RH and LH drive corvettes. it can be flipped 180° for either application - it is only supposed to utilize one bulb. why design two parts when one will work. nothing to do with accounting - common design technique.
Hello there, which LED did you use for the task? i would like to replace them all (informative panel, telltales, gears, etc). Currently installed bulbs seems to be T161 (14V 2watts?) but i can find little information, and i would like to keep the same consumption to avoid any electrical unbalance.
Automatic Trans Indicator Missing a Bulb
