Redoing the interior on my 76. Went thru the trouble of taking out the speedometer/tach. So, now that is out, what maintenance items should I do? Thought of changing the bulbs, but not sure that the new chinese made bulbs will last as long as the originals.(they all work now). Or should I replace the speedometer cable or lube it? Just looking for suggestions, because it hopefully will be along time before this is ripped apart this far again.

 

I don't have anything to add however, I do know what you went through. This is probably the most dreaded job when dealing with the interior of these C3s. Good luck an be sure and double check that all of the lights are plugged in beforwe reinstalling the lower dash.

Bill

 

Loflite,
Just put my dash back together, I installed a new radio bezel and cd/radio combo,
In back of the dash you will want to check or change youy vacuum lines if they look bad.
I changed out all of my dash bulbs while I was in there, I never want to do that again. All of my bulbs worked but I remember a while back when I was working at Pratt & Whitney the electrical unit would come in and change out all of the light bulbs good or bad , was told its easer than replacing one or two everyweek when they start to burn out.
Longf story short replace them
I went to an auto electrical place and started asking a lot of questions , here is what I did.
There are 22 bulbs back there, 10 are what I would call important,that being Tach, speedo , oil,temp and so on, the others are things like turn signals, door ajar, flashers and so on. here is why I am going there.
I was going to upgrade all of my bulbs to brighter ones which in turn draws more amps ,one bulb upgrade does not seem like much but multiply that times 22 and that's a lot more amps thru a 33 year old electrical system.
I started to look a the cost of bulbs in the auto stores $2.00- 2.50 each.
I went to Napa and got a package deal 10 bulbs in a package for 11.00 a package for a total of $22.00.
Bulbs are rated in candle power, I got 10 #1895 2 candle power ( Standard ) for turn signals and the like and I got the 12 # 1816 3 candle power for the tach,speedo and such.
I have not had the car out because I am doing the Door panals carpet and interior but I can tell you this much,if I turn my dash lights on in the daylight in my garage I can actually see that they are on nice and bright, before I could hardly tell if they were on at night.
Well what ever you decide to do good luck.
Dario

 

I would worry about them being 'too' bright at night, but you could always adjust via the dimmer right?

 

Been there, done that!

I think you got it all.

I had to do this job twice, if I remember right. Only thing I would suggest is take a series of pictures and write down notes on how you did it. The second time for me was 10 times faster since I just did it. I am sure there will be another time as these are 30+year old C3's, I just wish I had taken better notes!!!

 

Thanks for all the good info. Did you guys do anything with the speedo cable? Oh yeah, forgot got to ask, what is the trick to removing the headlight switch from the dash panel?

 

Its a good idea to remove the cable assembly clean out the outer casing and cable, and lube.

There is a pushbutton on the switch itself that allows you to pull out the **** and shaft and then unscrew the front bezel.

 

Thanks Noonie, that used to be my uncle's nick name.

 

I agree with all of the above on the maintance.Better now than again later. I did that last summer and ever since replacing the bulb for the parking brake (which I think was burned out) it has been on and annoying ever since. I do not know what is keeping that light on. Any ideas from any of you? Thanks

 

A company called old time auto parts has complete bulb kits plus fuses for abouts 30.00 bucks they put together for your year ck on flea bay