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#1
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LED Dash lights
I saw a video the other day of the dash lights being swapped to LED bulbs in an older Cougar XR-7. Does anyone know of a LED bulb kit to replace the OEM bulbs in the tach and speedo cluster of a second gen. Mine is a 1976 Trans Am and the cluster lighting is really poor at night. Thanks.
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#2
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https://www.ebay.com/b/Instrument-Pa...711/bn_1470759
I hope the link works for you. If not just search LED dash lights. You can change the color of the bulbs too. My brother did all of his in blue. Looked pretty cool. |
#3
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It's really just a matter of buying some LED bulb replacements for the old dash bulbs and installing them. You can buy them at SuperbrightLED.com
I only replaced the cluster illumination #194 bulbs in mine, since those are the ones responsible for how bright the light is for the cluster. I didn't replace the red warning light bulbs, turn signal bulbs, or headlight high beams light, since I can see those fine. I believe there are 6 illumination bulbs. If you want to brighten up the small gas gauge and voltage gauge cluster too, it uses 1895 bulbs, so you'd need LED replacements for that bulb number.
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Steve F. |
The Following User Says Thank You to Grand73Am For This Useful Post: | ||
#4
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Also, while you're doing it, I suggest replacing the dome light bulb with an LED equivalent, and the floor courtesy light bulbs, if you have those too.
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Steve F. |
#5
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Agree with Grand73am. I just swap out the 194's that illuminate the gauges and leave the turn signal and high beam stuff alone.
Just make sure you buy LED's that are capable of dimming. Some out there act like an on/off switch making your dimming feature useless. |
#6
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I like them bright, so don't ever dim them anyway .
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Steve F. |
#7
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I'm old, so I find they tend to keep the focus off the road if too bright, and some of the LED's, depending on brand, are pretty friggin bright. So it's nice to have the option of dimming when needed.
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#8
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Super, thanks for the info.
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#9
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__________________
1978 Black & Gold T/A [complete 70 Ram Air III (carb to pan) PQ and 12 bolt], fully loaded, deluxe, WS6, T-Top car - 1972 Formula 455HO Ram Air numbers matching Julep Green - 1971 T/A 455, 320 CFM Eheads, RP cam, Doug's headers, Fuel injection, TKX 5 Spd. 12 Bolt 3.73, 4 wheel disc. All A/C cars |
#10
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Yup as others have said, you just buy 194 replacement LED's. The only thing I didn't see mentioned by previous posters is that you can't simply remove the original bulbs and half hazardly install the new led bulbs. The old incandescent bulbs don't have a dedicated positive and negative on them. most LED's do however and if installed backwards they won't light and they'll also kill any other light that's using the same power or ground path on the printed circuit. You just need to be diligent about your install.
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-Jason 1969 Pontiac Firebird |
#11
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There are some LED bulbs that they call "polarity sensitive", as JLMounce is talking about. With those, they only work one way, so if it doesn't light, turn it around.
But, now they make bulbs that are not polarity sensitive, so they will work either way. When looking for bulbs, look at the specifications of the bulb, and look for a "No" on the polarity sensitive spec, and you won't have that problem.
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Steve F. |
The Following User Says Thank You to Grand73Am For This Useful Post: | ||
#12
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Looking at the back of a spare tach and speedo cluster I have, I pulled one of the twist in housings that hold the 194 bulb. I can't see any way of determining polarity. If I put it in wrong is the only outcome that it doesn't work. Looking at a general blog (no idea what car type) there was a comment that I could burn out all other lights on the same circuit if I put in the LED with wrong polarity. I am looking at the Sylvania bulb but it has polarity. They aren't cheap but going through some reviews of LEDs a common theme is that the better ones are more dependable, last longer, etc. Thanks again.
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#13
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LOL. It was here for the burning out advice using same circuit. Guess this is just double checking.
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#14
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Quote:
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Steve F. |
#15
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I would THINK you could test each LED bulb with diode tester on dvom, and hot and ground on circuit board, mark the ground side of each and install. A non polarity sensitive DIODE Bulb could be more to go wrong? IDK how this is accomplished, nor if old dashes rely on power being back fed to accomplish anything.
A few years back my bud put them in the dashes of all the semi's in his fleet. Don't know what brand of bulbs he used. Changed back to standard incandescent, because of frequent failures. I'll check with him if he found good bulbs yet, all his trucks are LED front to back now. Either he found something good or is swapping out a lot of lights. If their is something good out there he will be in the know. |
#16
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I've had issues with some of them that stop working prematurely. Usually just part of the LED quits working, or they start flickering. My father has a few different brands here, he's been an LED nut for quite a while. I've tried some of them in dome lights, trunk lights, and other courtesy lights with pretty good results. I just haven't really paid much attention to which brand is better though as far as working properly but what I have noticed is that if you don't buy the LED's that say "bright white" or something along those lines, they pretty much suck and don't light up any better than an incandescent bulb.
Something I've started tinkering with on a couple of the daily drivers is LED headlights. Now those I've found HUGE differences in brands and how well they light up, and it gets a bit expensive experimenting with those. I finally found a set that I was happy with that projects a strong beam down the road. |
#17
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Quote:
__________________
1978 Black & Gold T/A [complete 70 Ram Air III (carb to pan) PQ and 12 bolt], fully loaded, deluxe, WS6, T-Top car - 1972 Formula 455HO Ram Air numbers matching Julep Green - 1971 T/A 455, 320 CFM Eheads, RP cam, Doug's headers, Fuel injection, TKX 5 Spd. 12 Bolt 3.73, 4 wheel disc. All A/C cars |
#18
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Quote:
On our 69 Camaro it all lights up with a green tint from the factory with a colored back round, but with the incandescent bulbs you could barely tell they had a mild green glow. I switched all the gauges over to bright white LED's with the most LED's on them that I could find. Not only is that stuff super bright now, it actually brought out the green tint more. I got dimmable LED's because on super dark roads when it's pitch black outside I need to turn them down a pinch, those dash lights are so damn bright the glow on my face makes it harder to focus outside. It did help tremendously with the vital gauges down on the console as those were always hard to read at night. |
#19
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Quote:
On my 79 TA, I also changed the color inside of my cluster housing from the original blue to white, since I wanted to be sure the light was as bright as possible. I used gloss white for better reflectivity. I also re-colored the back side of the black face of the cluster. You can influence the color of the light that way. I believe it was originally a light green color, which I didn't like. I painted it with a shade of blue that I preferred, which gives a slightly bluish tint to the bright white light, and it looks great to me. Here's a night photo. You can only get an idea of the extra brightness from this. The camera was not able to reproduce the true bluish color of the lighting. It couldn't even reproduce the yellow and red on the tachometer for some unknown reason. It looks much clearer and cleaner in person, with more color, without the foggy or halo look you see in the photo. 001 by grand73am, on Flickr
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Steve F. |
#20
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FWIW, the LED bulbs I installed had a + and - labeled on the bulb itself. So all I had to do was look at the printed circuit and follow the power and ground paths, then position the bulbs accordingly.
I had the cluster out which made that far easier. If I was trying to do this with the cluster in, I'd purchase the bulbs that are not polarity sensitive. I believe Ames sells some.
__________________
-Jason 1969 Pontiac Firebird |
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