Dash Panel LED Replacements

[Wolverine]

Anyone have any luck replacing the incandescent bulbs lighting up the dash with some fancy new LED's?

What are the advantages?

What are the disadvantages?

I am counting like 12 bulbs total behind speedometer, tach and fuel gage.

 

[Qcode351mach]

Anyone have any luck replacing the incandescent bulbs lighting up the dash with some fancy new LED's?

What are the advantages?

What are the disadvantages?

I am counting like 12 bulbs total behind speedometer, tach and fuel gage.

W..I did all the bulbs in my other car..(you know which one rofl )Advantages are brighter cleaner light..different color choices..

I don't see any disadvantages except price for the bulbs.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2F1157.htm

 

[Totalled]

I can read the gauges at night now...

 

[73vertproject]

You could start here... http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-led-dash-lights?highlight=LED+dash

 

[Spechti]

Another benefit besides the much better readability of the instruments is the lower heat emission of LEDs compared to bulbs. A lot of plastic cluster housings were barbecued over the decades. This phenomenon ocurred even worse when bulbs with higher wattage were used to enhance luminosity in the past.

 

[Utard]

I did mine last weekend.

with the original bulbs it was difficult to see them with the rpm's up, and next to impossible at idle.

they would flicker along with the headlights, and I kept having an issue with the temp gage randomly shooting all the way to high.

now they are bright as can be, don't flicker, don't change luminosity with the rpm's and my temperature gage is working just fine.

however, I took my headlights off of the headlight switch circuit and ran them through relays at the same time, so that might have played a part too.

the drawbacks are the cost and the time it takes to get to them, but I think it's certainly worth it

 

[whitesoc]

I did mine two summers ago, and am very happy with the way they turned out. I had to screw around with the contacts on a few bulbs to make sure I was getting a good connection but once that was taken care of they have worked great.

 

[TheJ]

Here's what I did. I think its cheaper than buying bulbs and brighter.

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-gauge-lighting

 

[luxstang]

I got a kit from Mustang project and I love them. They´re really a lot brighter than the stock lamps. To give you an idea: I can easily see the light from the LEDs when I am in an underground garage alight with incandescend lights. The stock ones I could only see at night when everything around me was dark.

I can only recomend going LED, no matter which system you choose.

 

[Don65Stang]

I've got to get some of those!

 

[droptop73]

They are definately on my to do list.

 

[edd]

i have that same problem with dim dash lights ,can you buy complete dash light kits for 71-73?

 

[goodnigh]

The bulbs used in the instrument cluster are the same ones used for side marker lights; 194, 2 candela.

So they should be bright enough for the gas gauge. Problem being the blue filters darken and get burned

with age. We used properly colored bulbs and left the filters on. Big mistake. The filters need to be broken

off as they are not removable. So remove the filters and install the proper colored LED. Test before you install

the instrument cluster as you usually get a couple of bulbs backwards. The LED's are polarity sensitive. A drawback

is you can't use the dimmer so the bulbs are always full brightness.

mike

 

[whitesoc]

Polarity sensitive.....I wish I'd known that when I put mine in.

 

[Utard]

I got my kit from hipoparts.com. (FC7173FM-EL)

I went with the "elite" series mostly so I could still use the dimmer.

Maybe my diffusers were just in better shape and not burned, but I left mine in and they work great.

The LED's made a huge difference. I would totally recommend the upgrade.