dash light upgrade?

[mattwspeed]

Looking to get better lighting for the dash gauges on a truck. Looking at possibly LED's behind the dash or much brighter bulbs. Has anyone had any success with making the gauges brighter at night? We can come up with something im sure but if others have any "been there, done that" ideas it would be great. Thanks guys

 

[gimpyrobb]

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?22618-Dash-LED-illumination&highlight=

 

[mattwspeed]

AWESOME! That was our original thoughts.. glad to see it works so well. we will use blue lights and see how she looks! Thank you Sir!

 

[Artisan]

Guys have drilled holes in the lens's in just the right spot
to let a lil more white light pass thru.

 

[mattwspeed]

I think the LED's may work well enough. Drilling holes in a new $350 set of gauges makes me nervous LOL

 

[Alexsha]

I think the LED's may work well enough. Drilling holes in a new $350 set of gauges makes me nervous LOL

The holes don't go in the gauges. They go in the plastic caps over the light bulbs.

 

[steelandcanvas]

If you would be game to remove the instrument panel and gauges, painting the back-side of the panel gloss white helps put the light back into the gauges.

 

[jonesal]

I switched to clear lenses and it's much brighter. I had to take the original ones, use a heat gun to remove the red lenses from the brass fronts. I then used clear lenses from the indicator lights above the steering wheel to insert in the front brasses. MUCH brighter and white. I need to put in new rubber gaskets and I can finally see what's going on.

Al Jones

 

[Alexsha]

I'm thinking of trying out something like these:



Should be bright and surround each gauge quite well. I think I can get them in RGB too.

 

[cranetruck]

Here are my preferred options.
Believe it or not but the lens with holes was actually original to my '69 xm757. I had done the same to my old cranetruck and was surprised to find the same solution on the 757. Could be a GI-fix at some later than 1969 date, of course...
The reason for the shorter bulb is to place the filament lower in the fixture for better "aim" of the light.

 

[cranetruck]

Since driving the cranetruck at night with poor dash lighting was not a good experience, I kind of went overboard with options on the 757, in addition to the external panel lights, (here seen turned on), there is also an overhead dome light.

 

[73m819]

I also use a armored cab light, not only helps me on the gauge visual issue, It also allows me to look around the cab if needed with the blue (looking for red) light, then the white light is great for reading directions on the side of the road at O dark 30 when I think that I just passed my turn.