gauge cluster lights brighter info pics aslo

[b454rat]

On one of my truck's I painted the insides white, also the back of the black thingy. Turned out good, was nice and brite.

If you want it really brite, get the white faced gauges, then you will have to turn the dimmer down!!!!

 

[quinryan]

In mine (a cursed, '82 with the 6.2) I painted that plastic bit gloss white and swapped out the (mostly burnt-out) bulbs for red ones. It's a pretty cool look, and reminds me of my Army days.

 

[JBerno]

but the hard part is to the untrained person its a 2 hand job.

I fixed your last post, I like this one better

 

[Greg72]

slackers

Look who's talking....you're you one who's 4 years late posting the "after" pics.

 

[bailey9r]

Look who's talking....you're you one who's 4 years late posting the "after" pics.

too too funny! I guess he doesn't like to rush into things

oh well maybe any second now

 

[sweetk30]

ya ya ya bust my balls a bit more.

i was just in the dam truck yesterday. but as normal during the day.

 

[Brian_D]

awesome thread, im going to try this over the weekend, i cant see jack at night.

 

[454Sub]

But for real, I painted the inside chrome, the original black cover piece black, repainted the needles with some orange paint I found, cleaned the gauges all up and touched them up, buffed and polished the clear lense, and replaced all the bulbs with 168s and its real deal bright now. Makes me wish the dimmer switch works.

And on a side note, this trick works on your taillights too, remove the lense, pull the bulb socket holders and then repaint that whatever its called, my taillights look like the "ricer" aftermarket LED lights now, way brighter.

 

[jamber2541]

Using the 16 SMS led bulbs, they really light up bright and they do dim, posted picks just don't remember where, beer is kicking in. It hurts to think.

 

[Chief Brody]

I've sprayed the bucket chrome and now white...I can tell you white is brighter...
also the trick about painting the backside of the black metal bezel white is even more effective...you may lose that slight hint of blue but if brighter is what you are trying to achieve that is very effective...
I am trying to keep mine original so I am going back and forth as to which bezel to use....
I'm really kind of ok with the brightness with just the bucket being white.

 

[muddermilitia]

Any tips on keeping all the sockets working? One of mine goes out all the time and I have to reach my hand behind the dash and adjust the socket. It will work for maybe a day or until I hit a bump too hard, then it goes out again

 

[diesel4me]

Every year at this time when it gets dark early,I curse my ultra-dim dash lights on my old GM's...been spoiled by the newer vehicles much brighter ones I guess...mine looks like someone put 12V bulbs on a 6V system,like candles instead of candlepower!.......................................................................................I get tempted to do something about it every year,but balk at taking the cluster out and all apart..I already have issues with the little blue indicator lamp for the hi beams not working,so I ran wires to another indicator lamp under the dash so I'll know whe they are on....been tempted to try using brighter bulbs or maybe drilling the cluster and using one of those sockets and bulbs from an aftermarket gauge with a bigger and brighter bulb in it,like a # 57 ,at least on the speedometer and fuel gauge..but I dont drive much at night the older I get ,not sure if its work the effort really...for now I keep a small LED flashlight handy so I can use it to illuminate the gauge I need to see after sunset...

 

[Brian_D]

dash is pulled out, cluster next, new bulbs in hand along with some chrome paint, time to brighten things up.

 

[Amtek]

If your bulbs go out maybe all you need to do is lightly sand the copper on the PCB and the tabs on the sockets while also bending the copper tabs on the sockets out a little bit for better contact. Make sure to lightly sand the contacts for the main connector too.

I've converted my whole cluster to LED. All the indicators are now brighter than stock and light up very 'clean' and even, especially the turn signal indicators that are very noticeable even during the day. But using white LED's for the back light is very weak since the light has to reflect off two surfaces in order to light up the gauges. Im gonna tear it apart again and add an LED light strip along the border of the cluster. I did this to my '73 F-250's cluster and it looks really sharp and modern.

 

[Brian_D]

I saw the post about pushing in a metal tab to get the speedometer out but where is the tab located? i dont see anything on the front and there isnt much play for me to get my big ars hands behind the speedometer.

I might have to just tape everything off and paint around it.

I also find it amazing how easy the other gauges come out, so cool.

 

[sweetk30]

reach hand up behind cluster. find speedo cable. then grab the end were it clips in the speedo head. there will be a tab on the back of the speedo that hooks to the cable. push it to the speedo back and it will stand it up. and then when holding it try and wiggle cable out . just that easy

 

[Brian_D]

reach hand up behind cluster. find speedo cable. then grab the end were it clips in the speedo head. there will be a tab on the back of the speedo that hooks to the cable. push it to the speedo back and it will stand it up. and then when holding it try and wiggle cable out . just that easy

thanks man ill give it another shot tomorrow, i just didnt want to start pulling on it before i found out for sure where it was, there isnt much play with it. dont wanna rip any wires! heh

 

[sweetk30]

cable is the shortest . and it just floats in the firewall gromet. you can tug a little but dont go crazy .

 

[marsk5]

Do you have any pics of the lights on in the truck to see how much of a difference it made????

 

[Blue85]

Any tips on keeping all the sockets working? One of mine goes out all the time and I have to reach my hand behind the dash and adjust the socket. It will work for maybe a day or until I hit a bump too hard, then it goes out again

I took my cluster out and soldered wires between all of the little light socket tabs, so they are all connected in parallel. The wire length still allows the little socket to be taken out to change the bulb. Some of the flex circuit to bulb contacts are probably bad, but I will never notice.

You could also bypass the flex altogether and wire this combo into the harnes, but it would require removing every socket to pull the cluster. The gauges always seem to work, so I figure the flex design is OK in general - the problem is with those little sockets.

You can take the sockets out and use a metal polish on the tabs and flex circuit, then bend the little tabs up a bit and the bulbs will stay on for a while. But eventually they will go out again.