Thinking about a dash light upgrade. Your thoughts?

cruiser said

The factory instrument panel lights in my 1974 Duster are pretty dim, even when the rheostat is turned all the way up. Has anyone out there done the LED upgrade, where you simply plug the LED bulbs into the existing bulb holders on the back of the instrument panel? There are several colors of white available, so I wouldn't want a very starkly white light as it wouldn't match the off-white color of the radio and heater panel. What color did you use? Were you happy with the result? Is your instrument panel brighter at night now? All ideas welcome - thanks!

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My 2 cents...



I have done this upgrade and fooled with it a lot until I got it the result I wanted.

1. All headlight dimmer switches are not alike . Some dim more or less than others. The one I found that worked properly , I got from Nappa.

2. Be sure to clean the blue hoods that the lights go in to. Most are extremely dirty and fogged up cutting the amount of light going through them.

3. Paint the white surfaces with a super white paint for better reflectability.

4. Check for areas with light leakage and seal them up. After 50 plus years, these materials shrink and no longer seal properly

5. As Demon X suggested, these work great ! "superbrightleds.com". "cool white" 6500k, 110 lumens, 0.7 watts, 194-style led bulbs.

6. Make sure you have good grounds and 12 volts to the cluster.