What is the best way to increase brightness in gauges?

[scarceller]

Originally Posted by RoninLB

Wow... I'm impressed



I guess the 5w bulbs won't fit into stock bulb sockets?

How does the 3/8" copper tube fit into the gauge's long female metal tube stock bulb holder?

I guess the 993 dimmer knob will fit all the ready made dimmers?


I've been waiting for 10 years to figure this out.

thx big time

The 3/8 tube fits real snug and so do the bulbs. This mod takes some time to do and you need to mod the existing wire harness behind the dash or a better approch is to remove the stock harness and build a new harness to power the bulbs, not very hard to do. As for dimming I never dim my dash so I wired it without a dimmer and love it.

[ajmarton]

New bulbs make a big difference. I also used a small Dremel to take the tarnish off the holders / contacts and used an electrical contact cleaner (Craig's DeoxIT) on everything. Also went through the fuse box and put in new fuses (many appeared to be original) and cleaned the ground strap posts contacts with Craigs as well. Very big improvement.

[scarceller]

Originally Posted by ajmarton

New bulbs make a big difference. I also used a small Dremel to take the tarnish off the holders / contacts and used an electrical contact cleaner (Craig's DeoxIT) on everything. Also went through the fuse box and put in new fuses (many appeared to be original) and cleaned the ground strap posts contacts with Craigs as well. Very big improvement.

+1 on this approach, replace the old bulbs with new ones and clean everything up, nice and shinny! You'll be surprised.

[gsmith660]

Originally Posted by scarceller

No holes drilled, I have a doc covering this project here:
http://members.cox.net/widebody
Then at bottom of page get the dash mod doc, it has all the details.

Read your write up and it was great and by far the best idea I have looked at so far and by the way your favorite dimmer is now only 69.00. one thing do xenon bulbs at 5 watts generate alot of heat I.E. shorten the life of anything else or at the very least burn off that nasty condensation that gets into our gauges on a humid spring nights.

[scarceller]

Originally Posted by gsmith660

Read your write up and it was great and by far the best idea I have looked at so far and by the way your favorite dimmer is now only 69.00.

This mod takes some time but worth it, in my car I simply decided to go without any dimmer, I moved the supply to the bulbs from the dimmer terminal on the light switch to the other terminal that has 12V whith lights on. For me I find no reason to dim the dash. The other nice thing about this approach is no need to open or modify the gauges, very easy to return to stock if you wish.

[gsmith660]

Did you see my edit?

[scarceller]

Originally Posted by gsmith660

Read your write up and it was great and by far the best idea I have looked at so far and by the way your favorite dimmer is now only 69.00. one thing do xenon bulbs at 5 watts generate alot of heat I.E. shorten the life of anything else or at the very least burn off that nasty condensation that gets into our gauges on a humid spring nights.

They certainly generate more heat and COULD be an issue to the guage but I have not yet seen any trouble. Keep in mind my car lives in Rhode Island climate.

[gsmith660]

At any rate this is the mod for me I am making up my shopping list now, good deal I hadn't done the led lights because I didn't think they would do the trick I wish we could do the 993
3 led light mod that looked good also as for the dingy yellow vintage look well I don't have a vintage stock car so I would rather be able to see my gauges than preserve the stock look. Good job!

[75Carrera]

Originally Posted by 75blkcarrera

My 75 had the originals and they were ready for the bone yard. Went to the LED ones and have no complaint at all. Purchased form on of our own Pelicans. (If you don't care if (it) is period correct.) JC

Do you happen to have any pictures of your dash panel (lite or not) I'd be very interested to see what led lighting looks like if not in the stock configuration. How did it change your period look? As a fellow 75'er you might enjoy a shot of my dash panel. The lights are too dim (or is it my vision?) I'm confused. LOL

Donny

[gsmith660]

Just ordered the bulbs will be working on the mod soon.

[gsmith660]

Well made up my bulbs and now I have to get in there and make a harness and later I will put a dimmer on it. What size fuse did we decide needed to be used?




The before picture

[scarceller]

Bulbs look good, but with the shrink tube that far over the pipe you may only be able to push them into the gauge as far as the shrink tube, they may need to go a little deeper.

As for the harness: back trace the existing harness as it should be able to be completely removed and then you can make a new one and save the old.

Also, you can run without the dimmer but don't wire to the dimmer terminal on the headlight switch, see my doc for alternate wiring details.

Nice job.

[gsmith660]

Already tested if I push them in to the shrink tube it is perfect depth in the case I need to go in farther then I will trim the shrink tube back. Thanks for the comments. I am going to add a ground harness to 3 of the old bulbs so I can put them in the fresh plastic sockets and have light there also.

[Chris84Cab]

I didn't read all the posts, so a good remedy may already be found. However, the company link listed below did my guages... they do custom gauges and LED upgrades...http://www.nhspeedometer.com/911/custom_coloring/1.htm

[marks914]

That looks like a good way to do it. We were looking at adding LEDs in a similar concept, but it was actually less expensive and time consuming to do the full periphery LEDs

Mark

[hopps]

So, I'm pretty much a noob (first post), and I read about 4 pages of this topic before my head started to hurt.

So, I have an 86 944 N/A, and I was wondering if you guys could tell me what bulbs I needed and how many in order to replace the current ones in my dash. As much as I would like to have LED's, the money for this is coming from a currently unemployed 17 year old, so I have very little to work with.

[DRACO A5OG]

Hey Hopps,

I think you may in the wrong forum for an 86 944.

[hopps]

Big fail. My bad

[gsmith660]

Now that done You would have to pull your gages out and look at what you have for lights and then you can use this thread to do your own work up for lights post some pics here and we will help out a younger sibling as in the 944.

[gsmith660]

I got the new lights hooked up one thing if you use terminal 57 per your writeup then the dash lights go off when you turn the headlights on 57 is only powered with the parking lights you need to use terminals K,L,or R to power them.

first harness



Now before and after