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I installed the LEDs and made some measurements last weekend. The LEDs are a huge improvement over the old bulbs but they make the dirt on the inside of the gauges' lenses obvious so I'll have to take them apart and clean them!
The rheostat puts out 0 V when turned fully counter-clockwise. Turning it clockwise, a click can be heard and the voltage jumps to 9.3 V. At fully clockwise, the voltage is 12 V. This is with the engine off so it'll be higher when the car is running. The LEDs come on at approx 7.5 V so they're already pretty bright when the dimmer switches on at 9.3 V. There is some dimming through the range of the rheostat but not much. Still, it's good enough for my needs so I'll leave it alone. If one wanted to increase the dimming range, a PWM circuit would work but I would personally use a power op-amp that scales the output of the dimmer to suit the LEDs.
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