I just installed my dash. And as I reported all worked. It has new bulbs, new loom, and the switch works to lower the brightness or make it brighter. I closed the garage door, and turned the overhead lights off. I looked at the dash from an angle with the lights adjusted to there highest, and they appeared somewhat dim. I wonder if I was sitting directly in front if they would be brighter.
I am aware that the newer cars are bright because of the design, led bulbs etc.. I guess my question is can you do anything to correct this or do you live with it.
Thank in advance Dennis

 

Dennis -

I had to replace the dimmer switch on my 67 for the same reason - the dash lights worked, but were very dim. After I changed the switch, they work great!!

 

I went through this last year but can't find the thread. Anyway, I tried super bright LED's and a the brighter 1817 (hard to find) bulbs. What I found was: 1. The dimmer switch does not put full 12 volts to the bulbs(the 2 I tried anyway) 2. The reflecting plastic in the cluster is no longer the nice white it was when new. 3. The LED's are bright but are too directional. My solution was to use no. 44 bulbs that are 6 volt. Life is reduced but keeping the dimmer down a little and cranking it up, when needed, has worked fine.

 

Are you sure you remembered to re-connect the ground wire at the top of the cluster?

 

Was the car running ??? Your running voltage is about 2 volts higher than when the engine is off.

 

The lights wouldn't work at all if they weren't grounded. I think these cars never were all that bright - can't compare to modern cars.

 

I too question the ground (you can easily get a sympathetic ground from other sources). I would also do a simple test on your alt performance after you gconfirm a good ground to the cluster - jumper a wire from the alt neg post to the base of the voltage regulator, kinda elimates a bunch of bad ground gremilins

 

Dennis,
Try sitting in front of them and see if they are brighter. Sorry, just couldn't resist.
Dave

 

I just fed the lightning bugs behind the guages steroids.....

 

Dennis -
I note from your profile that you, like me, are retired. At my last annual visit to my optometrist, she warned me that as I age, my night vision will get progressively worse. I guess I'm trying to say that it isn't just our cars' lighting that is getting older. Perhaps this level of dash lighting was just fine back when we were young like our cars.

 

The 1817 bulbs in my car are a lot brighter. My source has dried up.

A long time ago someone posted an airplane instrument bulb that worked and was brighter. We need advice from a cockpit mechanic/electrician.

 

I want to thank you all for your comments I have tried to answere all of your recommendations including the use of fire flies.

1.I been out all night looking for those bugs are friend from the south mentioned, and then I remembered we all don't have those bugs here.
2.So far I only need glasses for reading, and my night vision seems to be ok I hope.
3. Engine was not running and as mentioned maybe it will be a little brighter, I hope.
4. I installed a late model 140 amp alternator to power all my upgrades, and by doing this I eliminated the need for a regulator.
5. I had Jason rebuild the cluster and I hope the reflecting lenses would be something he would replace if avaliable since he rebuilt all the gages, I'll check with him on that issue.
6. The switch seem to be fine as it raises and dims the light.
7. Before writing this I went back out sat directly in front of the gages turned the lights out, and nearly broke my neck, just kidding, and turned thoses puppies on. On a scale 1-10 maybe a 7+.
8. I have a optima bat. so I believe there is plenty of juice. car was not running, it's in a closed garage.
9. With regards to a good ground that may be a fault as I still have the dash seperated from the frame. Did not want to secure it until I had all the wires and problems worked out. It's mounted w/3 long bolts that.allows me to work on it. I did not know there was a ground wire on top of the cluster. I bought the car with it already removed, will check that.
10. I'll goggle for those bulbs and maybe get lucky.
Thank you all again will let you know what happens.
Dennis

 

The cluster ground wire is a 14-ga. black wire with a black plastic female connector on it - it plugs onto a male spade on the back of the cluster "can" adjacent to the tach (see photo below). That wire grounds everything in the cluster, including the wiper switch and the lighter.

 

I'll check for that ground spade. I have looked at that instrument cluster a lot over the months after it was reworked and before I installed it. I don't remember seeing that part as shown in your photo.
I felt all around the top of the tach and there it was. I'll check for the wire and attach it.
Is there anything else back there I need to be aware of.
Thank you for taking time to send me that photo. By the way I'm still having trouble getting photos on the web site. I'm sure it's me, but will keep working on it.
Dennis

 

The brightest T-3-1/4 (13/32" - 10mm diameter - elongated glass) minature bayonet bulb I see is an 1816 (in my old GE specialty lamp catalog). This has a MSCP (mean spherical candle power) of 3.0 at 13.0 volts and draws .33 amp. These are also rated at 38 lumens.

The brightest globe type bulb is only 2 MSCP bright (at a higher voltage of 14 volts) and are #57, #1895, or #293 (heavy duty). These are also rated at 25 lumens.

There is a T-3-1/4 elongated glass bulb listed for 9.84 volts that should work, but have a shorter life (depending on the dimmer setting). It puts out 4 MSCP @ .5 amp draw. It is #947. The lumen rating would be about 50. Don't know if this bulb is still available.

Plasticman

 

Google shows The Atlanta Bulb Company (who I bought mine from a few years ago) lists them again:
http://www.atlantalightbulbs.com/eca...og/catw-2.html

 

Just don't grab the wrong wire - there's another 14-ga. wire with the same connector on it, and that one is "hot" when the key is on - it's brown, and can be difficult to distinguish from the similar black one. If you connect the brown wire to that spade, the entire cluster will be "hot", and the oil pressure pipe will become a ground path, and melt anything it touches. The brown wire connects to the radio capacitor adjacent to the ignition switch, and the black wire connects to the ground spade in the photo. If you don't have the capacitor adjacent to the ignition switch, just tape the brown wire up out of the way so it doesn't contact anything else.

 

OSRAM 64111 are 5cp halogen bulbs, I use them in every cluster I install. Bring sunglasses!

 

As far as the original post (dim dash lights) goes, let me just report my own recent experince - after having my cluster done by Jason and reinstalling it (work of art, by the way) earlier this year, I was sad (G-rated description of how I felt) when I first had the car out at night, for things surely seemed dim. I figured I had bung-ed up the reinstall and some of those friggin bulb sockets (the ones with the grey wire) had come loose. Oh well, said I, revisitting that PITA will just have to wait for another day.

I then moved on to the fact that my batt guage always seemed to show signif neg when running at night at other than high revs (unrelated to dash light issue, or so I thought). I had a nice, correct John Pirkle alt in there (37 amp) for a few years now that is a work of art and I figured perhaps I should shelve it for judging (if ever) and just drop in a modern 60 amp unit. Got one and did just that, and then the stuff was sure bright at night - too bright dash, really nice and bright headlights (no such thing as too bright there, but they sure won't going last very long like that) - too much juice coming off the alt (Christ now what?) so I swapped out the volt reg for a new wells tansistorized unit (VR 7something, got the pn# here) and that stabilized the power - back to where it was before I began the journey, the friggin batt gauge still was doing just what it was doing before at night - heavy negative unless higher revs, dim dash lights (classic case of throwing money at the problem ).

Took a suggestion from here, and just jumper-ed a wire from the neg post on my [new] alt to the base of the Voltage Reg - thereby by-passing a few gounds - and presto, problem [temporarily] solved - bright (normally bright) dash lights, and now my headlights wiz up and down, never noticed that they were unusually slow before.

I have heard it here before, but I only seem to learn when I experience it first hand - now I always turn to ground issues first and rule them out before taking things apart, replacing bulbs with brighter ones, upgrading alternators, thinking that some bulbs popped out during a dash cluster install, etc.

 

do the halogen lightbulbs create damaging heat????