I've read a lot of posts on this subject, and was looking for a successful attempt to swap the 17 bulbs in the dash/gauges for 194LED's?
What I've gathered is they are (17) 194's, and LED will work, without adapted flasher, or any other modifications.
Anyone follow through and actually do this that can share nuances if any?

 

I replaced the incandescence lamps in the center gauge console bezel and the shift console with LEDs. Also the "courtesy lights"....the lights that come on when you open the door. The speedo/tach lamps are still incandescent. I can use the stock wire wound reostat in the headlight switch to dim the lights in the speedo/tach panel.

In the stock electrical configuration, fully dimming all of the lights will cause reostat heating and can result in failure of the wire wound reostat. The LEDs dramatically reduce current flow through the reostat and will ensure it doesn't burn out.

What I've done results in the LEDS in the center gauge console bezel and shift console not being dimmable. Doesn't seem to be a problem.

I used green LED's for the instruments in the center gauge bezel panel.

Note for the seat belt red warning light,.....I used a red LED. Do not use a "white" LED. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a "white" LED. The "white" LED's, under a microscope can be seen to be a matrix of triad groupings of red, green, blue LEDs. When the color sensitive cones in your retina seen red, green, blue light from the LED's they interpret this illumination as "white" light. If you use a red plastic lens over a white LED, the red lens will filter out the green and blue light......leaving an attenuated red light to shine through.......the light from 66% of the LEDs will be filtered. If you use a red lens over a red LED, all of the light will come through.

 

I’m converting mine right now to LED while I have my 1980’s speedo sent out to be converted from 85 mph to 140 . I bought amber , lt blue , dark blue , red , green and white from eBay. I’m starting with the red LED’s since my interior is red leather and see how it looks . They plug right in and so far it working good, I still have the center console to do

edit to add... I did install white LED’s on a customers 71 Monte Carlo , it sure brighten everything up

 

What bulb and brand, how many? For example. 12 (194) Phillips GLED. Like I said, everything I have read is generalization, there are a ton of different bulbs for sale out there. They all have different specs to them. I read a post that idenified 17 bulbs total, 5 for the gauges, so I am assuming only, that there must be 12 in the center, speedo and tach. It also seems the ones in the center are (192), and the gauges are (194), again, I'm not sure. Hate to pull the cluster twice, is why I am asking. I could pull it and look, and then post what they really are.
Even beam angle is different among bulbs.

 

I got mine from superbriteled.com. mine aren't dimmable but they look real good. They had some listed as dimmable but not in stock....maybe they are now. It was 2 years ago
Heres a link to a 68 vette for an example
https://www.superbrightleds.com/vehicle/1968-chevrolet-corvette-vehicle-led-lights?make=16&model=607&year=1968

 

Which bulb did you purchase (lumens)?
And if you had it to do over again, would you buy brighter or dimmer?
I'd like to convert all of my gauges, and don't care about them not being dimmable.

 

I don’t have the model number of the LEDs I purchased from Superbright. Get a list of the incandescent bulb numbers, and then go to the Superbright site to get the equivalent LEDs. Make sure you get LEDs that are NOT Polarity Sensitive. Also for the turn signal indicators get Green, for bright indicator get blue, and for the seat belt, headlight indicator get red. For the courtesy lights, I chose the ones with a glass/plastic dome to mimic a incandescent bulb. I also replace the side markers with red and amber LEDs. Tried to
change the parking/turn signal lamps, but had issues. so I stayed with incandescent bulbs.

 

I lost interest in replacing the instrument and gauge bulbs. When I tried to find a list of the bulbs/type/quanity, I must have read 100 posts; nobody knows is the bottom line; suddenly it doesn't matter to me!

 

I ordered a bunch of the cheapest led replacements I could find on ebay 8 years ago when I replaced my interior and besides the fact that I cannot really dim them they all still work perfectly fine. later I found there are many "distributors buying, rebranding and selling the same chinese bulbs and some of the pricing is outragous.. Not to say the bulbs are all the same but you could end up paying much more than you need to for the same bulb.

 

my 1980 had 194's in the instrumentation , I installed red in the gauges and used white for all the warning bulbs , my LED's don't dim and are directional so if they don't work rotate the bulb , bought cheap off ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/20x-Super-R...53.m1438.l2649