Dashboard lightbulbs

Funny thing but the speedo is not an MOT requirement... as soon as you drive on the highway your breaking the law as its vehicle unfit for use under the Construction and Use regulations. I know some useless crap

I know loads of useless crap too. mot/construction and use is a wonderful thing as a loose front mudguard is a fail but not having one is a mot pass but c&u fail.

We all know useless crap, Lee Van Cleef is the first person you see in the film High Noon

under C&U regulations you only need a method displaying your speed though.....

so a GPS speedo, a bicycle computer, or a standard speedo are all OK.



and I believe its an MOT failure as well as C&U failure, if the wheels protrude from the body work


but as for the speedo, my Landy speedo never worked so I just used a satnav permanently

Didn't think you needed mud guards full stop?

Now with a more channels than ever, I can't find a good slow cowboy film to sleep to on a sunday

Finally got the instrument cluster out the other day and promptly found that the led bulbs I had bought for the panel illumination were too big. Great.

Anyway, we took the main beam warning bulb out, held ithe cluster up to the sun, and could see that the etched panel was actually blue! There didn't seem anything wrong with the bulb, no discolouration or anything odd visible. So off we went to Halfords but found that they do not list illumination bulbs for the Hijet, it is dashed out in their little flip chart book. What we did find however, were blue led bulbs of the right size so it now has at least a correctly coloured main beam warning lamp. It is very bright as Rich seemed to think so I am not sure yet whether it will be staying! Time will tell.

As I say I don't know whether there was anything wrong with the bulb, turning the lamp green, or whether someone had fitted something different to achieve that; there were marks indicating that someone had tried to get into the cluster before.

Anyway, to answer a question earlier in the thread:
* Illumination and warning bulbs are the same.
* Carburettor Hijets have two illumination bulbs while EFIs have three.
* The bulb I used was marked on the packaging as LED286B 12V t5 Upgrades R286

One thing about the led I used was that it was marked as ultra bright. Is this true for all leds or are there some not so bright ones? Would Xenon white be too bright for instrument illumination?

It is worth noting that I find the dashboard illumination sufficient if there are no street lights but otherwise it can look as though most of the bulbs have blown. In bright sunlight the instruments can be completely washed out as they can by the lighting in a tunnel; in this last case the tunnel has a variable speed camera so it is imperative that one should be able to see the speedometer at least (not just a vague shadow only visible if you look hard at it).

bushwhacker wrote:One thing about the led I used was that it was marked as ultra bright. Is this true for all leds or are there some not so bright ones? Would Xenon white be too bright for instrument illumination?

It is worth noting that I find the dashboard illumination sufficient if there are no street lights but otherwise it can look as though most of the bulbs have blown. In bright sunlight the instruments can be completely washed out as they can by the lighting in a tunnel; in this last case the tunnel has a variable speed camera so it is imperative that one should be able to see the speedometer at least (not just a vague shadow only visible if you look hard at it).

The dash lights are about the same on my '95 993cc efi and yes LED's come in a vast range of brightness's and you can't belive the description I have bought ultra bright from the same place a couple of years apart and one was so bright that you could have a picnic in the dark under the back of my car (used them as number plate lights) and when replaced as the wires broke with the new ones they barely light the plate up, You need to look at the rating by mcd (usually not that bright) and lumins/candle power.

Got some for mine as i can't see much illumination, changed them earlier, just got back in. Still crap (need to get some halogen headlight bulbs wired in )

the problem with all dash lights is they light up the back of the dash and rely on the reflection inside some where I have a led light with a lens so you get a kind of strip light I got them from poundland years ago to do some interior lighting in the car but they barely lit the footwell and I blew some of them before I realised there was a resitor mounted in the plug but I keep meaning to dig one out and get a white LED and mount it in the top of the dash to light front of the dials up.

Speaking of halogen head lights..

I could never recommend the Ring Rally 100w/55w lamps for about £5 including postage off the Deamon Tweeks power seller.

And they are not in the slightest bit stunningly bright and no way worth a purchase.

Never, no way, not in a million years.

Right if you take your dash apart and use some cheapo alu-tape you can increase the brightness reflected from the bulbs but you do get a better light at the top that still dont spread to the fuel and fuel gauge at the bottom



The pic was taken in the dark with no flash on a mobile phone.

Wow! That looks like you could actually see the speedo. I've never owned a vehicle with such a crap dashlight.

Maybe paint the needles with this stuff:-

http://www.glowstickcity.co.uk/glow-paint-1.html

I had concidered something similar but then sticking a uv led to make sure they glow.

Thank you for all your help.

I finally got round to sourcing some leds from Ultra Leds for the dash lighting.

http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/ultimate-wide-angle-xenon-white-leds-p-1669.html

They are listed as U286SMT Ultimate 286 3 x wide angle xenon white leds. 20 lumen light output. 40ma.

Having fitted them I find that they are slightly dull but do light up the entire cluster so that the speedo and the other gauges are all clearly readable. They also seem to resist being washed out by very bright light from outside the car so all dash lighting problems seem to be solved. (They also improved reading the mileometer; for a long time I had trouble reading the last digit -- solved that too!)

Thanks again.

PS.
The old bulbs were quite blackened so they were quite obviously wearing out but then they were getting on for sixteen years old!

PFM wrote:My display is very dim too - hard to read the speedo after dark. I'm guessing the bulbs are capless (501, 504 etc) but does anyone know how many come on with the sidelights and what wattage are they?

Finally got round to doing this today! They are 12v 1.2W No. 286 - £2.60 for 10 on ebay (or 50p each from my local independant shop  ) There's 3 for the backlight, and 8 for the indicators, warning lamps etc. There's also one in the heater panel which is a right sod to get back in

Hi rich I would certainly pay a fiver for a white back drop. The paint is all flaking off below my Speedo.

I really must get round to redoing the cutting/printing file and will let you know it does however go over the standard dash card as the coloured bits for the warning lamps is in it.

hi rich are you still thinking of selling them as i could do with one

There are a couple of things I really don't like about the Hijet and one is the pathetic dash lighting. Has anyone tried fitting the 2.3v T5 bulbs?

Gra

Sure some of your bulbs haven't blow?

HighlyJetted wrote:Sure some of your bulbs haven't blow?

That is possible as I haven't actually checked but what light there is, is fairly evenly spread which leads me to think that they are just too dim and certainly nowhere near as bright as the heater control panel lighting.

Gra

That's interesting - I replaced all 3 bulbs in my '95 993 and it's better than before, but not as bright as either my '98 993 or 02 1.3. I cleaned the perspex cover too, so can't understand why

I finally got round to doing something about the dash lighting yesterday, so took the dash apart to examine the bulbs. All 3 were blackened so off I go to get some new ones. I put everything back tegether and waited till dark.

A few hours later and I turn on the lights. Well what a waste of time and money. The dash lighting is just pathetic and I can't believe that Hijets left the factory like this. I'm also puzzled as to why the heater control panel lighting is fine when the dash just isn't. Think I'll try some 2.3w bulbs next.

Gra

If you want a complete clocks unit with bulbs I have quite a few, and could almost give you one with the same milage on.

Gra wrote: The dash lighting is just pathetic and I can't believe that Hijets left the factory like this.

They didn't. I remember my '95 998 being much brighter when new, and my other vans are both brighter. Would love to know if 1.2w is the correct rating - anyone?

PFM wrote:
They didn't. I remember my '95 998 being much brighter when new, and my other vans are both brighter. Would love to know if 1.2w is the correct rating - anyone?

1.2W are what came out when I changed mine.

If you check the information charts in Halfords I think that will tell you although there was one bulb they didn't mention.

HighlyJetted wrote:If you want a complete clocks unit with bulbs I have quite a few, and could almost give you one with the same milage on.

Thanks for the offer, HJ but I already have a spare. When a bought the van my son came with me. We settled on a deal which included all the previous owners spares. I went in the house to pay and sort out the paperwork whilst my son loaded the spares. To my amazement when I came out the van was cramed full to the roof with all the spare parts!

One thing I don't have which you may be able to help me with though is a good (uncorroded)  metal T piece that fits between the coolant hoses by the filler cap on lpg equipped vans.

Gra

Yes I do have one, but it belongs to Dino, so if you came to a deal with him, I would send it to you.

HighlyJetted wrote:Yes I do have one, but it belongs to Dino, so if you came to a deal with him, I would send it to you.

Dino????