Dash Board Lights

I just did the 308 dash board light upgrade. I bought the set from Italian car parts.

Now I notice a significant increase in illumination on the speedometer, but the rest of the gauges don't seem to be significant. I did verify that all the bulbs are working and I did take the opportunity to clean the Dimmer reostat.

What are your impressions after doing the upgrade?

thanks.

 

clyde,
I did the upgrade as well, same result as you..did'nt find much of a diff.. but then again, there are many threads here that say it is not the bulbs but the "dimmer" switch that has to be bypassed...I kept mine stock and didn't mess further. as it is my 308 at night as a "heads up display" see enzo was way aheadof his time...as the instruments reflec in the windsheild.

 

Same with me. The Speedo looked great but the rest really didn't. In fact, the speedo difference actually bothered me more than before when they were at least all the same.

I bought a euro tach on ebay a few years ago because the red a yellow colors were fading a little on the original. Interestingly, this version lights up as well as the speedo now. In fact I had forgotten about the previous illumination difference until I read this thread. I wonder what is different between the US version and it? (I used the same bulbs that Italian Car Parts sent me).

By the way, bypassing the dimmer knob is a nice idea and very very simple but it will not make a night and day difference unless the knob itself is shot to begin with. For example, your speedo is bright now when it's not bypassed so that alone should tell you that it isn't creating that much resistance as it is now.

 

I did it to my '82 Euro about 4 years ago. The Speedo is acceptably bright, the Tach & other instruments are still marginal.

I've been looking at those new high brightness white LEDS. Am thinking that a half dozen of them spotted around the inside of the Tach case might help a lot.

The other alternative i've thought of is to hook the dimmer up to a voltage booster. They're often used to run fuel pumps at 15V-18V in track cars.

 

My dimmer switch was working fine, but I did measure (IIRC) an almost 2 volt drop across the switch. Take a look at this write up that we did:

http://www.nwrfca.org/faq/dashlights.html

 

Yes, but I like having a dimmer control...

 

I agree with you Verell. I hate having features that don't work. I actually put a lever on the back of the potentiometer that when the knob is twisted all the way (actually a little beyond) bypasses the windings and shorts across the switch. I didn't say that in my directions because it is a little hard to explain. So now the dimmer works as usual, but I can also go full bright.

Note: the way the switch is designed, when at full bright it still goes through some of the windings, and thus you have the resistance and voltage drop.

There is a noticeable difference from the switch's full bright and shorting across it. I can tell, by going from one to the other.

Henry