Dashboard lightbulbs

Does anyone know whether the bulbs for the warning lights are the same as for the dashboard illumination?

Is the colour of the warning light produced by the etched cover plate or a coloured cap or even the colour of the bulb?

The reason I'm asking is that I woild like to change the colour of one of the warning lights and need to know feasibility and type of bulb. (At the moment I can't seem to get the binnacle surround off so I can't look!).

Instructions though the medium of art

All bulbs same I think. Just put your fingers on the top of the fascia, push down and pull pretty confidently. The four metal clips hold it on.


Three screws...


Then the connectors hold in via these clip buttons... you have to pull them of gently so you don't damage the foil on the speedo


Then do as its says....


Here are your bulbs, the little black white and blue knobs

What he doesn't say is that the colour is controlled by the fascia sheet which you can get at by removing the screws holding the clear front on and then pulling the needles off and can be done insitu but the needles don't have stops and when I had ours off I had to fill up to the brim with fuel and up to normal running temp to set the needles back in the correct places.

you can cut the coloured square out in place and then slide a bit of coloured film in behind then you just need a bit of glue or something to hold it in place.

What do you want to change and what engine size is yours as the 993 doesn't have a low fuel warning light but the 1300 does and the later one will go in the earlier one and have a spare light if you trace the wiring.

Thank you very much for your help. Much appreciated.

The car is a 993cc and I wanted to change the main beam light from green to blue as, for some reason, I don't seem to react properly to the green colour if the main beam is unexpectedly on. That may be because the lights are a long way from the normal line of vision compared to a car, or perhaps being next to the green indicator light I don't take too much notice, or perhaps when I learned to drive the main beam warning lights were all blue! So I thought I would change the colour to suit me. However, if the colour is on the covering sheet it may not be such a good idea.

Prhaps I could connect up one of those push in warning lights they sell in accessory shops? I'll give it some more thought.

Thanks again.

I'm sure the main beam in the our MPV is blue and that blue was the standard colour on any modern car, I would check the bulb if you have a very yellow one it maybe distorting the colour also mine is so bright that it almost cancels out the benefit of having them on.

My old one was painfully bright too from memory

I don't think it's a distortion of colour because it is the same shade of green as the indicator one next to it.

I was interested to see, from another thread, that your mpv is 1995 which is one year older than mine and wondered whether they had simply decided to change that particular colour.

Another thing I noticed was the two cables on the picture of the back of the instrument cluster; are they for the vehicle speed sensor? (That gave me an idea but I have already put in a separate speedometer because the original equipment one is so dodgy).

By the way, does anyone know what the speed sensor information is used for? I understand that it is passed to the ECU but what does the ECU do with it?

Another thing I would like to do would be to get some plugs for the cluster connectors so they could terminate in wire 'tails'. I could then make my own cluster using accessory instruments such as Smiths or other make.

The ecu tends to use the VSS data for a few things,

It allows the computer to know which gear you are in by comparing the vehicle speed to the revs - and it knows the gear ratios

It then allows it to lean out the mixture at cruising speeds to give better fuel economy, and to richen it when under acceleration/pulling loads.

And it can also allow for speed limiting functions that are required for other markets e.g. japan.

There is probably more uses for it that I am blissfully unaware of!

On vtec and turbo cars, if often stops the vtec from engaging unless the car is going over 15mph so it doesn't kick in for no use when reving it up standing, and on turbo cars it messes around limiting the boost at low situations and giving you more when you need it.

So if the speedometer or cable is not working properly, could that have a detrimental affect on vehicle performance? (Since the VSS works off the speedometer cable).

Possibly yes, I have not reverse engineering the hijet software so I do not know entirely how it uses all its sensor input variables, but it is very likely to cross check the speed to make descisions on load requirements - it may not too if its an early ecu, although honda have used these techniques since the late 80's. I know the honda engine management systems inside out, and I do work on other stuff alot too, and most of the techniques that honda implement are used by everyone else.

So basically I don't know for fact - but if i had to guess I'd say "probably"

This is a job i guess i need to do, don't think my dash lights up at all.

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?

Hi I will get my book out tomorrow and see if the info you need is in there.

Waz

Ours are dim as well but as the evenings have been light I haven't done anything about it I did start making a white dash for ours so I shall have to get it finished.



and paint the needles so they stand out.

How did you make the white back drop?

Ah that would be giving the game away but needless to say it involved a scanner and the use of one of my wifes crafting gadgets.

That's a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it fox Bald-Rich

Cunning wiv a big thingy at the front. Would you like one made? I can any text/logo (outline) in the spaces. I was thinking of making some and putting them on flea bay at around a fiver. the one pictured is for a 993 but I have the design for the 1300 with the fuel light.

It's that cool I'd really love one, but as my dash is getting totally re-engineered with YZF1000R gear its not going to suitable, shame though as it is ace.

I have a feeling old timer logi would love one to go with his steering wheel and bucket seats.

If you are going to do the cut and shut that I would expect of you, if you stick all the bits from the YZF together onto the original sheet where you want them I could do you a special with a milk float on aswell if you like.

Obviously the display lights are just cut outs using the standard sheet underneath for the coloured bits and symbols but to get the correct speedo marks I need to scan the layout from the base unit and if a special where the different parts line up to each other.

Hell yeah! Now were talking.

I do have a slight issue speaking of Ernie, the yzf speedo is cable driven from the front wheel
And the hijet one comes out of the gearbox I think.

Might have to use a push bike one or something on the back axle. Come on idea's factory help me out?

Hi Had a look in my book but does not say anything about the dashboard lights.

Waz

liking the white dash rich, pass on the , how it was done mate,,, well impressed,,,,,bones..

I have a feeling i like that. (mystic meg strikes again )

White dash 's to order only I know you can workit out Bones.

as for the speedo drive it is a worm gear against a heli gear normally if you are using a solid axle (as opposed to a hollow) you may be able to sweat or machine out the center of the drive to leave you with just the gear and sweat this over the axle and run it off the rear but depending on what size tyres you run and if you end up playing with gear ratios could make it run out any way.

Hold the fort I had a better idea what are you using as front struts as the stock ones are factory ready for 4wd so where the drive shaft would be on the inside rotates mount the drive off there.

front struts as the stock ones are factory ready for 4wd so where the drive shaft would be on the inside rotates mount the drive off there.

That's a pretty good idea there, i'll have a look into that sort of trickery pokery.

Otherwise I was thinking maybe some form of wind speed sensor off a weather station on the roof?

I wish I had a photo I had a wind power speedo on my Rayleigh 5 in the early 90's it was mounted on the rack and had a calibration potentiometer and all. It was mad from a motor out of a toy car, the pot and gauge came from a dumped hifi and garden cane for the arms to hold the vanes made from halh ping pong balls are life as the odd kid was good.

rich the mechanic wrote:I wish I had a photo I had a wind power speedo on my Rayleigh 5 in the early 90's .

NOW i feel old

In the early nineties i had a Ford Sierra.....

Highly Jetted. Why not use a GPS speedometer. No mechanical connection and extremely accurate.

bushwhacker wrote:Highly Jetted. Why not use a GPS speedometer. No mechanical connection and extremely accurate.

I use sat nav as a speedo in our Transit, as the original doesn't work.
It got a mention at MOT time, but still passed, no problem.