The Final Answer to your Dim Gauge Cluster

Thank you very much for clearing that up!:Handshake

 

Thanks for the info

Very helpful thread...thanks again you all.

 

I STRONGLY suggest painting the inside of the cluster white. I did this a few weeks ago, am running original 194's, and it's an amazing difference. Same yellow as above, no green tinge, very cheap and easy and safe If you need a little more the 5W's will do it along with the paint. I used propane tank paint I had lying around.

 

Resurrecting this thread to report that I've had no ill effects from using these bulbs so far. Other than a couple of months down for an engine swap I've been daily driving the car, rain or shine, day or night for 10 (really 8) months.

 

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the root cause of the dimness? I was looking through the electrical section of 1bad6t and found an OEM alternator was a 15 volt unit, I then went to a parts supplier and they called for a 12 volt unit. Could this ultimately be the root cause of the dim light issue?

http://www.1bad6t.com/Maverick/repair/diagrams/untitled080.gif

(I just noticed the Voltage Regulator is 15 volts as well.)




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I'm gonna make some educated guesses. Older bulbs just burn dimmer. Older alternators put out inconsistent power. The style of potentiometer in the headlight switch is very susceptible to thermal decay, and I have burned my hand on one after a long drive at night before with the brights on.

I have in 2 different comets cleaned up the wiring, replaced the bulbs and headlight switches and gone from dim yellowish glow to a semi-bright white glow. I put a 3g alt in my GT and I would say they got twice as bright.

My next thing if I didn't want to just slap in brighter bulbs or something else would be to replace the wiring from the switch to the instrument cluster. The wires imo are a little to thin and any corrossion that has gotten into the wire will raise the wire resistance even higher resulting in an even dimmer bulb.

If you take the stock bulb and wire it up to a decent generator directly its plenty bright, but still its plenty bright with old tech. Plenty of room for improvement and updates. Just my professional opinion on it.

 

I wouldn't say it's the old alternator or the old bulbs, at least it never was in my case. New stock alternator didn't change anything, new stock bulbs didn't either. If it's either of those things then it's a design issue rather than an issue of age. Now, if there IS an aged stock part to blame, I'm pointing my finger at that headlight switch, and I'm scowling at it sternly. I hope it's very uncomfortable.

 

LOL!! Now that's funny!

 

I can promise you, they'll melt the cluster...

 

If it was a design issue...I'm sure it would had been corrected in the 8-1/2 years of production.

 

Yes new stock bulbs and a new stock alternator wouldn't fix it because you put in the same old style of technology. And it was a design issue otherwise we wouldn't be upgrading to a 3rd Gen alternator. The technology they had at the time is not as good as what we can get now.

That is why I heartily approve of Facelessnumber using different bulbs. He's got 10 months with no issues on them, if the LEDs inserts I'm about to get off eBay don't work out I'm gonna use those.

But hey, thanks for agreeing with me guys (even though you didn't realize you were )

 

Well it wasn't too clear whether you meant "old parts," as in age, or just "old tech." But yeah, since you clarified, I do agree. And I did mean "old parts" when I said headlight switch. I just can't believe every single Maverick and Comet, which right now certainly has a dim cluster if it's all original, was born with that problem. That's the kind of thing that would piss off a new car owner, even in the 70's one would assume. So I think these headlight switches, specifically the dimmer pots in them, just universally go to hell after a certain amount of time.

As for the LED strips, I tried that and got a terrible glare no matter where I put them, but if you get good results please let us know what type you used and how you placed them.

 

It's been quite a while now. How much longer does my cluster have to not melt before I can officially say it's not melted?

 

Yea I realized I wasn't clear. Also I never used to complain about how much darker my house was with old style incandescent bulbs, until I started using CFLs and now LED bulbs everywhere. Now when I go to someones house and its full of old soft-white bulbs I can't see anything.
What was there to complain about in the 70s when every bulb was dim?

And I'm gonna use:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270975379300?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

I'll let you know how they work out when I get them. I've already tried plenty of other options, but I really want to use the stock wiring. I do enough custom wiring as it is. Like right now I'm working on a low budget rear defroster system.

Also, I really doubt the new bulbs you spec would ever melt the cluster.

 

Looks like I have egg on my face, but as another poser mentioned it's common for the third brake light to have melted sockets using these bulbs... That said, there are three or four different versions of these larger bulbs(906, 921 etc) current draw(wattage) does vary... There are also halogen versions of the 194 size bulbs that were used in the mid/late '80s clusters... I dunno if they are still avail, I just always used std bulbs when replacing those...