How to: Brighter gauge face with LED’s. By Roger Conte
The following will address Negative ground and Positive ground.
This was done on my 1964 BJ8.
Here’s what I came up with to help illuminate our dash gauges better than the stock 2.2
watt filament bulb. This is just my solution, other views may vary, but who cares about
them anyway. You’re reading my mine right now. I rock! (Disclaimer: I don’t really rock,
others may chime in with why not to do this modification, or why I don’t rock. Most of all,
please be careful).
First things first: If you have not already done so, put an inline fuse on the back of your
dash light toggle switch. Before touching any of the wires, disconnect the power.
The stock filament bulb, a 2.2 watt, gives off a somewhat dim yellow glow, what’s called
a warm light. There is only one bulb in the rear of each gauge to light up the dial face. A
good portion of the light is blocked by what ever mechanism is in the gauge. And unlike
newer cars where the face is illuminated from behind, the light in our gauges has to
shine through the 1/8 inch gap between the cylinder circumference and the gauge face.
This is the case for the oil/water, speedometer and tachometer gauges. The fuel gauge
requires the light to reflect off the back face, then forward to the front face, not through a
1/8 inch gap on the edge of the dial.
I tried an 8 watt filament bulb. It was brighter, but still mostly only the top most portion of
the face. The problem was the bulb got too hot. And we don’t need any more heat in the
drivers foot well, do we.
The best solution I found (again, other views may very, blah, blah, blah) was to use an
LED. For this project, I tried many different types of LED’s. It needed to be as bright as
possible (cool white) and illuminate as much sideways and forward as possible, like
filament bulbs do. (LED’s like to focus their beams forward, which doesn’t help with our
situation).
Negative ground:
If you have converted your car to a negative ground, this will be a plug and play.
Replace all (8) original E10 filament screw bulbs with the E10 Superstar led from
http://autolumination.com/otherleds.htm
Replacing the bulbs behind the green directionals, will allow you to actually see them
flash in the daylight. No, I’m not kidding. However a slight amount of current will bleed
thru to the other indicator when in use. It’s a very small amount and it may not bother
you. You can fix that by installing a small 100 ohm load equalizer across the circuit to
absorb the energy. That will make the indicator led’s stop lighting when they are not
supposed to. See this link: http://autolumination.com/equalizers.htm
Once you have replaced all (8) bulbs with led’s and patted yourself on the back for
surviving all the contortions you just put your body though, turn on the dash lights and
marvel at how talented you are. Maybe while your calling all your friends and neighbors
over to look at how your gauges light up, you noticed that the speedometer and
tachometer dials don’t light up at the bottom as bright as the top does. Some will say, I
can live with that or maybe you’re like me and think I got a little more contorting left in me.
Plus I get to spend a little more Healey mad money on (2) more E10 Superstar led’s I’ll
need.
Remove the speedometer and tachometer gauges. Place the gauge face down. You
should now be looking at the back, with the black plastic bulb socket at 6 o’clock. Drill a
hole the same size as the other bulb holes as close as you can to the left of the black
plastic bulb socket. (Either remove the face from the gauges first or use a powerful
vacuum to help keep the metal shavings from entering the gauge as you drill. I highly
recommend taking the time to remove the face. If you do, spray the inside of both barrels
gloss white. It will help brighten up the light). Make sure to leave enough room between
the two holes for the bulb holders to clip in. (SEE PHOTO). Buy two more E10 sockets
and splice the center wire into the red with white stripe wire that goes to the stock socket.
You should be able to buy these identical sockets from British Victoria or British Car
Specialists. (Hard to find the E10 socket, most supply the bayonet style). Now put it all
back together and let your friends/family who are now wearing their sunglasses as they
stare at your gauges, pat you on your back. For you too now rock!
Positive Ground:
Led’s require a negative ground to work. To get around that in your positive ground car,
you will need to isolate each socket. Here’s what I did. Others may have a simpler or
safer way of doing it.
You can not use the stock E10 bulb holders.
I tried the wedge type and the bayonet type. The wedge type did not lock the bulb in as
does a bayonet. We don’t want the bulb falling out of the socket into the gauge after we
take a hit from that pack of cigarettes in the road, do we.
You will need (12) bayonet barrel socket holders.
Here is a link to where I purchased some.
http://www.egauges.com/vdo_indA.asp?PN=ATM-2357
You’ll need (12) BA9s bayonet HID white high power led bulbs.
Here is a link to where I purchased some.
http://www.v-leds.com/Shop/Control/P...id/0/SFV/32481
Once you have the sockets, you'll need to isolate them. I found heat-shrink tubing works
better than electrical tape. Your local hardware store or Radio Shack may stock the size
you need. The size should just slide over the socket barrel. Insert the bulb into the
socket and heat-shrink from the top edge of the bulb, to the bottom of the barrel socket
holder. The more area you cover, the less chance for an accidental grounding error.
(SEE PHOTO).
You’re off to the hardware store again. Grab the tachometer gauge and the bayonet
socket holder that now has the LED bulb heat-shrink-ed in place. You’ll need (6) rubber
grommets. Grommet thickness may vary, so try a few to find the one that fits the hole
and makes a snug fit with the socket. I found the right size at Orchard Supply Hardware.
(4) Grommets will fit into the top and the new bottom hole of the tachometer and
speedometer gauges. (2) will fit into the directional housing cylinders. (SEE PHOTO).
The fuel and oil/water gauge have a metal tube with four slits in it that the socket wedges
into. Widen the opening end of the tube a little, so as to lessen the chance of cutting or
ripping the shrink wrap, which is acting as the isolator. (Take care not to let any metal
part of the bulb (the very end of the bulb) or socket touch any metal part of your car.) Or
you’ll be testing your new inline fuse. Once the sockets are pushed firmly in the gauges,
they will stay in place. Try removing one. Care should be taken when removing or
installing. I would recommend using your power cut off switch in the boot when ever you
need to get to these bulbs, or work on anything electrical. Oh, and don’t forget to look
both ways before crossing the street and wash your hands before dinner.
Now... the final step. How to actually wire up the negative ground sockets into your
positive ground car. Carefully.....ok then, my work here is done. Good luck!
First, cut the power off. All bayonet sockets will be using two wires, even though some of
the original sockets had only one wire. All gauges will be wired the same way.
The center wire from the bayonet socket will be spliced into the center wire from the
original E10 socket. The outer grounding wire from the bayonet socket can be attached
to any metal of the car. A convenient place is the bolts on the back of any gauge that has
a black wire grounded to it. You can either cut the original E10 sockets out and replace
with the bayonet sockets or leave the original E10 sockets there and splice into their
wires. Don’t forget to isolate the original sockets if left hanging under the dash.
Congratulations!
Seems you made it this far without nodding off.
This project may take a little time, but the reward of clearly seeing your dials at night will
be worth it. Plus now in the daylight you will be able to see the directional…. that has
been blinking for the last 5 miles. And you thought those other drivers were just waving
at the coolness that is you, because you have an awesome car.
Happy Motoring!
Roger
Remember two things.
1. Try not to get any metal shavings in the gauge.
2. Placement of the led. When looking at the front of the gauge, the bulb should be at
about 5 o'clock. Not 7 o'clock.
Yes, it is the 5 O'clock position, front reading, on both gauges.
Especially on the Speedometer. Placing a light at 7 O'clock and the light will beam
through the bottom counter. Does not happen when the bulb is at 5 O'clock.
Looking at the back of each gauge, place the bulb to the left of the stock black plastic
bulb holding tube. Measure twice, cut once. Make sure you leave enough room for the
socket base.
If you install a Tridon EL13 turn signal flasher , the dash turn signal
indicator LEDs work without the " bleed over " to the opposite LED.
There is no need to use the resistors.
You will have to make a mounting system for this flasher as it
doesn't have the mounting tab with hole as the stock flasher has...
It has been great being able to see all of the gauges and indicators,
even in the daylight this year ! Thanks again Roger.
Ed
Hi Ed, thanks for sharing.
Ed, could you provide a link where to purchase the Trident EL13 signal flasher?
Ed, did you add an additional led to the bottom of the speed and tach?
Some upgrade projects I really enjoyed doing. This was one of them. The led's helped us
see our gauges much better at night. My surprize came with how well the led lit up the
directionals in daylight. It's a real help, in case you can't hear the flasher unit (who can
hear it?) and the turn lever does not return to off. Now, in daylight, you can see it's still
flashing.
Happy Healey motoring,
Roger