Instrument Panel and Misc

[Machspeed]

Continuity glue would work!

[ArdWrknTrk]

Dave, your issue is that LED's only emit light at certain wavelengths.

If you look at a color wheel you will see green is diametrically opposite red.
While that means they're compliments, there is no red light to fluoresce the pigment in the red paint.

Green is about mid range in humans range of perception, while red is off at the very long end.

[86 1/2 Brutus]

Be careful with led dash lights, some of them are to bright and you cannot dim a led with a reostat.  we thought about this as well but decided to just go back with regular light bulbs.

The blend door.    They all almost always break, Brutus's did and so did 2 of our Lincolns back in the day.   I bought 2 small hinges from the hardware store and installed them on the blend door and put some very thin  felt like packing material on the front of the door to seal it better when it's closed.  works like a charm.

[86 1/2 Brutus]

The whole entire instrument cluster and wireing has been completely redone.  if you need any help, just ask

[ArdWrknTrk]

But a lot of these replacement LEDs are able to be dimmed.
There's some kind of sorcery in their driver circuitry, because I find it hard to believe there is a PWM in the T-10 base of each lamp.

My Sylvania's definitely do dim.
Although, like most LED's they will only go to a threshold and not fade out entirely.

[86 1/2 Brutus]

got a part number Jim?

[Gary Lewis]

My HiPos dim, but since I've not had the truck out of the shop since I put them in I cannot say how much they really dim.

Having said that, from my experience you aren't going to get too much light with today's LEDs.  Even the HiPos.  A few years ago at one of the GTG's David/1986F150six and I put LEDs in his dash and added a ballast resistor so there was enough current draw to make the voltage drop across the dimmer effective.  Later he sent the ballast resistor back as he ran the LEDs on full all the time.

[FuzzFace2]

Gary Lewis wrote

My HiPos dim, but since I've not had the truck out of the shop since I put them in I cannot say how much they really dim.

Having said that, from my experience you aren't going to get too much light with today's LEDs.  Even the HiPos.  A few years ago at one of the GTG's David/1986F150six and I put LEDs in his dash and added a ballast resistor so there was enough current draw to make the voltage drop across the dimmer effective.  Later he sent the ballast resistor back as he ran the LEDs on full all the time.

I run mine on full bright and they are not too bright, I think just right.
Dave ----

[ArdWrknTrk]

Let me look, George.

It's raining right now.

[Rusty_S85]

You just have to make sure the bulbs you get have a voltage range.  If they are just 12 volts then they arent dimmable.  Ones I get are 9v to 24v.  They dim some but not fully, the only ones that I have that actually dim quite a bit are the B9AS socket festoon bulbs for my '56.  Those dim way more than the T10 wedge base bulbs as they are like 4v to 15v range.

Full brightness BA9S festoon bulb 4v to 15v range


Full Dim


For my T10 wedge I dont have a photo of full brightness and full dim but the change is not as drastic as on my BA9S.  The T10 wedge you have a hard time finding them with a 4V to 15V range, I havent found any of them to be honest all I have found are 12V - 24V range.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I'm using the Sylvania Zevo 'super bright' lamps in some positions and the regular  in others.
Both show 6000k and 0.5W draw.
Maybe the Zevo lamps are binned for higher output?

Mind., I do have an '87 and the dash cluster is completely different, but I find I don't need as much light in the corners as I like on the tach and speedometer.

[Rusty_S85]

I have to wait and see how mine will be in pitch blackness, so far I just leave mine on full brightness and it doesnt bother me but I am driving in the city.  Once I move out into the country where there are no street lights it may be a different problem for me.  I am just going to wait to cross that bridge.  my '56 I only did the LED bulbs cause they use less power and would help my generator in keeping the small battery charged.

But I did find out though using a 5smd chip set bulbs are better than using the single chipset.  The single chipsets present hotspots and the 5smd chip set provides more 360 illumination that softens this hotspots a bit better.

[BullnoseLuvr]

I don’t know if anyone else has had this experience but my truck, being a farm truck, was full of fine white dust EVERYWHERE. The dash lights were like fireflies so I pulled the cluster and found that the bulbs were covered in dust.  I cleaned the bulbs and the contacts (and I must’ve cleaned the green filters but I don’t remember) so the factory setup worked pretty well with full dimming range, but then I put in a tach cluster which I cleaned up and it works fine too.

Mark

[Rusty_S85]

mine had a white granular dusting on the inside but it wasnt on the bulbs themselves as it was coating the bulb covers.  I removed the bulb covers to do my LED conversion but the bulb covers are what I found really dims your dash lights over time as the plastic becomes less translucent and allows less light to pass through.

If you could locate some NOS ones you might be able to use them long as they havent done the same thing due to age.

Me I think I will stick with LED as I like being able to see my gauges in the city.  Only thing I might do different is try to find some of the lower voltage range LED bulbs like I did with the BA9S socket bulbs to get more adjustability but I dont think the brightness would be a problem.  Mine are about as bright as a late model vehicles dash lights are at night time.

[ArdWrknTrk]

BullnoseLuvr wrote

I don’t know if anyone else has had this experience but my truck, being a farm truck, was full of fine white dust EVERYWHERE.

I think what you've found is the flat white paint used in the 'light pipes' is breaking down and the pigment is coming off.
My (and many people's) experience is that repainting these 'tunnels' will result in a much brighter cluster.

[BullnoseLuvr]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

I think what you've found is the flat white paint used in the 'light pipes' is breaking down and the pigment is coming off.
My (and many people's) experience is that repainting these 'tunnels' will result in a much brighter cluster.

I’ll try that. If they all do that then mine has too. I can tell you though that the white dust my truck is afflicted with is absolutely everywhere, including in the dash.   I wondered how it could get in the cluster, except maybe through the electrical connectervwhich isn’t really sealed, but that would be a stretch.  The warning bulbs across the top were encrusted too.

Mark

[ArdWrknTrk]

Well, it was just a guess.
I know that I'm really dirty and up inside my dash everything is covered in dust (but I didn't notice a lot on my bulbs)

Could just be the soil where your truck lived.

[Machspeed]

Rusty_S85 wrote

The provisions are there for a tach but I would hit up ebay, I bought a whole cluster for my truck with tach and it was something like $80 for the whole thing.  Came out cheaper than me sourcing just the tach and then swapping the circuit board on the back to a tach version.

Rusty, after much looking, even spending an entire day in Tulsa salvage yards, I pulled the trigger on an Ebay listed gauge cluster with tach and trip odometer. Unfortunately, I paid nearly twice what you did for yours. Others listed there were even higher. I think one was listed at $240. The unit I purchased is off an 82 Bronco and looked very clean in the photos. Should be here a couple of days.

I purchased the HiPo needle paint and there cool white LED bulbs. I also purchased a new headlight switch, as I suspect mine may not be up to pare. I'll put all that in when I do the headlight mod.

Thanks for you input on all this.

John

[Machspeed]

86 1/2 Brutus wrote

The blend door.    They all almost always break, Brutus's did and so did 2 of our Lincolns back in the day.   I bought 2 small hinges from the hardware store and installed them on the blend door and put some very thin  felt like packing material on the front of the door to seal it better when it's closed.  works like a charm.

Thanks Brutus, appreciate your input. For some reason, I'm really dreading this blend door venture. Will be addressing that very soon.

[kramttocs]

So you found a tach? Glad to hear it but apologies for not getting around to checking my parts boxes for one.

I know what you mean about dreading the blend door. I am not fully up to speed on the scope of your work, but I assume you'll be doing it in the dash? With the HVAC box out, it's a breeze but never tried it in. There's a great guide on FTE for it and I think Shaun may have recently done it in his truck. I have some photos in my Camano build but I followed the FTE guide pretty closely.