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LED lights in gauges, console, instruments wiring help
Hi all, my 1974 coupe is finally home from paint & body and upgrading the instrument, gauge, and console lights is on the long list of tasks. For those that have done this upgrade, what did you do, or wish you had done, with installing LED bulbs in odometer? Specifically the pig tail things that are so fragile. I'm using original speedometer & tach (converting tach to electric tach...different project), Autometer gauges (light sockets will be different), and keeping hvac, automatic trans indicator, and wiper switch. I'm going with white lights, and am painting all the housings white so the color scheme is consistent across all instruments.
Did you make original light sockets work? or
Did you get after market ones? (one wire or two wire? The 2-wire ones are 3x the price of the 1-wire sockets)
For light switch, i don't plan on changing it, because i don't expect to dim the dash lights. just 'on' or 'off' using the 'ol rheostat switch should work, unless someone provides an example of why that's a bad idea.
I may come back with questions on how to test the instrument lighting, but i haven't gotten into that yet. I recall that I didn't have power to the instrument lights and didn't suss it out before sending car to paint&body.
Last edited by Cool bean; Mar 10, 2020 at 10:28 AM.
To dim the dash lights- I used a tumbwheel piece from a mid 90's BMW- works great. You can keep your headlight switch- and just run the dash lights through the thumbwheel.
And to ease in installation- make a male/female plug for the wires-
If found these to be compact and really nice- about $10 /m-f set
Experience has taught me to use LED lights from Superbright LED since you don’t want to pull the divers side dash out a Second Time. Make sure you purchase the LEDs that are not polarity sensitive. I was afraid to remove the mechanical tach and speedo cables, so my dash was not completely removed. I did drop the steering column and did one bulb / led location at a time. I was able to get my hand from the top and bottom to make the change outs. On some of the sockets, I did bend the small “tangs” to make sure the sockets stayed in place. Also, if you purchase LEDs with the appropriate colors, ensure you are in the correct place, ie. Turn signals are green, e brake red. Romberg to Go slow.
As always @Richard454, a very cool and well-researched idea! I'll look into the dimmer. @Eliredandblack : agreed on SuperbrightLeds; i have a complete kit from them that I purchased in 2017 or 2018. All lights behind colored lenses are the color of the lenses. (amber, green, blue, red, etc) The bulbs should be good, meaning not polarity sensitive, but I'll double check. The dash, in fact the complete interior is out of the car at the moment, so I have complete access to all wiring. And I sure as heck want to avoid taking it all out again.
When installing the light sockets on the Autometer gauges, i'll use the provided 2-wire sockets and connect all the grounds.
For the speedo, tach, console and wiper, I may try to make use of old sockets and might ever add a dab of silicon to keep 'em in place. Please comment if you've gone down this road and had to re-do it. (Meaning, gasp!, opening the dash again)
Or, did anyone buy new sockets? If yes, 1 or 2-wire? ('lectric limited and maybe a few other places have them both.) Do the replacements fit snugly?
I'm trying to avoid buying a whole new wire harness, everything else on the existing harness works; i plan to clean up connections and inspect insulation for cracks. (yeah, tedious, but i have time but not an unlimited budget)
Hi all, my 1974 coupe is finally home from paint & body and upgrading the instrument, gauge, and console lights is on the long list of tasks. For those that have done this upgrade, what did you do, or wish you had done, with installing LED bulbs in odometer? Specifically the pig tail things that are so fragile. I'm using original speedometer & tach (converting tach to electric tach...different project), Autometer gauges (light sockets will be different), and keeping hvac, automatic trans indicator, and wiper switch. I'm going with white lights, and am painting all the housings white so the color scheme is consistent across all instruments.
Did you make original light sockets work? or
Did you get after market ones? (one wire or two wire? The 2-wire ones are 3x the price of the 1-wire sockets)
For light switch, i don't plan on changing it, because i don't expect to dim the dash lights. just 'on' or 'off' using the 'ol rheostat switch should work, unless someone provides an example of why that's a bad idea.
I may come back with questions on how to test the instrument lighting, but i haven't gotten into that yet. I recall that I didn't have power to the instrument lights and didn't suss it out before sending car to paint&body.
I just completed light replacement in my 1980 so different scenario with wiring and circuit than you 74 but I will say i am very pleased with the LED lights. Agree to get the ones that are polarity neutral, as I didn't and unless the cluster is removed it would be very hard to get it right the first time with trial and error.
CB
I didn’t replace the bulb/LED Sockets as mine seemed to be in pretty decent shape, plus my dash was not completely removed. Check the existing sockets and see if they snap in to their respective holes. You may need to bend the small tangs to get a more secure fit into the hole. It wouldn’t hurt to check for any rust or other debris in the bottom of the socket. One only knows, where BUBBA or his many cousins have ventured. If you have the means, it may be smart to test each LED prior to installation. I did have two bad Superbright LEDs bad out of the box, fortunately they were in a courtesy light, and I knew they were bad right away. As I said before, you sure don't want to have to go back and remove the dash.
A follow up for now: the instrument light harness tested successfully. Also, since I'm using Autometer gauges I can use the single wire light sockets from that part of the harness as spares. (a few are broken already).
Also, since I bought the superbrightleds about 3-4 years ago, a lesson learned is NOT to accumulate parts that are electronics-related for 'future install'. I now have a pile of parts that I'll be listing for sale because I "went in a different direction". Sheesh. @carriljc had a really good suggestion to use the strip lights and I may still go in that direction. I like how well it works in the console (hvac, auto trans selector).
I had a center gauge console flickering light problem that nagged for years.
I finally re-wired all of the bulbs to 2-wire sockets with LED bulbs.
The single wire jobs were getting inconsistent grounding to the back of the gauge case and 1 or 2 would invariably flicker - drove me bats.
I jumped all the grounds to a single ground wire to the R/S dash frame, and problem solved!
I had the entire wiring harness out to deal with the aftermath of some catastrophic shorts (wire insulation melted and fused together - thanks Bubba). Two comments.
1. I wish I had seen the link above using the two wire 194 pigtail sockets for the gauge lights. Genius. I re used the single wire sockets but really regret it. Fragile doesn’t begin to describe how fussy those things are. I had to re solder multiple times.
2. This idea came to me much to late for my project, but what’s badly needed is a multi pin connector that allows the gauge pigtails to be disconnected as a group from the harness. That would allow you to plug all the bulb sockets into the gauge cluster on the bench, then install the cluster in the car before finally plugging in the multi pin connector to power it up.
LED lights in gauges, console, instruments wiring help
