The Dark Side

There is virtually no illumination in any of the gauges on my dash. Most light comes from petrol gauge and that is really bright green from right side of background. Turbo gauge a bit better then temp worse and finally speedo almost black. All quite dodgy at night of course. Had the binnacle off and bulbs work and are slotted as they should be.
Whats going wrong there? Do I need to upgrade to brighter bulbs?

Mine aren't too clever either (93 Def) I'm thinking a slightly higher wattage bulb might be the answer.

LED equivalents are good for dash bulbs.

The Mad Hat Man said:

LED equivalents are good for dash bulbs.

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Are they a straight swape over with the bulbs or is there more involved?

slim jim said:

Are they a straight swape over with the bulbs or is there more involved?

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straight swap on a pre-td5. A little bit of work with TD5 on.

fanks Ratty - wot he sed ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ratty said:

straight swap on a pre-td5. A little bit of work with TD5 on.

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Define little bit

slim jim said:

Define little bit

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pre td5's use 501 wedge bulbs. The led bulbs are a straight swap.

TD5's onwards use a small version of the wedge bulb (I can't remember the number). If you get the bulb holders from some wing repeaters or similar and stick male spade terminals on the ends of the wires it will plug direct into the original loom in the place of the standard bub holder. You can then fit LED 501 wedge bulbs into the holder. To hold the bulb in place, use a rubber grommet and push the led bulb into it. This will hold the bulb in place.

Thanks Ratty. All bar one of mine work fine,only half the clock lights up.

slim jim said:

Thanks Ratty. All bar one of mine work fine,only half the clock lights up.

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Lets hope its the front half .

slim jim said:

Thanks Ratty. All bar one of mine work fine,only half the clock lights up.

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Why not just change the bulbs?

I have a feeling the bulb holders on the clock and speedo are different from the ones on the fuel and temp gauge just to confuse things.

Here's a piccy of the size of the TD5 bulbs and their holders.




the bit with the black and red wires coming from it on the temp and fuel gauges is the bit you will need to plug the male spades into. Ignore the bulb holder at number 5. It is different from the fuel and temp gauge ones. It's the one for the clock

Last time I looked they were all working but still only one side of the clock lit up, I thought I'd missed a bulb somehow but you've just said the ONE for the clock and Im pretty sure thats all I've got too. Maybe its normal I'd take a pic but Im not going out again tonight. I'll post one tommorow evening.

slim jim said:

Last time I looked they were all working but still only one side of the clock lit up, I thought I'd missed a bulb somehow but you've just said the ONE for the clock and Im pretty sure thats all I've got too. Maybe its normal I'd take a pic but Im not going out again tonight. I'll post one tommorow evening.

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there might be 2 on the clock. I haven't ripped my dash aprt for a bit. All I can remember is that when i went to nick the bulb holder from the clock so i could use it on my temp gauge it was completely different.

Well when I said clock I ment speedo because I'd been in the local quinching my thirst for a few hours sorry. So here is the pic but the last time I had the dash out all the lights worked and I only found one behind the speedo, are there two? and I was soaber that time

slim jim said:

Well when I said clock I ment speedo because I'd been in the local quinching my thirst for a few hours sorry. So here is the pic but the last time I had the dash out all the lights worked and I only found one behind the speedo, are there two? and I was soaber that time

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I'm pretty sure there's 2 on the speedo.

Yeah must be I suppose, I'll take out the dash again next week and have a propper look cheers.

OI! Dirty Gerty shouldn't Janie be wearing a Garter?