Dim Guage lights Options

[Fyrmdk914]

Its me again with another question! The dash lights on my 75 1.8 are very dim, and I am using this car as a commuter. Once a week, I drive 120 miles to work, and back. About half freeway, and half swoopies and twisties through the southern california mountains. Yay! Back to my question, the guage lights in the speedo, tach, and fuel guages all work, however they are so dim that you cant really see the guages. Is it time to clean the connections, disassemble the guages and clean the lights, or replace the guages. I realize that each car is different, but what is the most common problem? Thanks...

[turboman808]

Might want to replace the bulbs with the white leds. Works pretty good.

If it is a wiring problem then maybe the headlight knob needs to be replaced or cleaned.

[type47]

the knob turns to control brightness. i suspect that on a 30 yr old car, the coils on the light know develop a "hot spot" and may burn or corrode making a larger resistance and dimming the gauge lights or forcing the knob to be turned off the hot spot to a dimmer position on the rheostat. i made mine brighter by rotating the know and i suspect i cleaned the rheostat slightly. you could try cleaning the connections for the dim control or, as suggested, install a higher wattage bulb (if you can find them)

[So.Cal.914]

Not to be insulting but have you checked to see if they are turned down? Try

turning the headlight switch. Clean the grounds One under the dash above the

fuse panel one is connected to the groundstrap of the battery and one at the

tail of the tranny. All three are studs with a nut that are connected directly to

the body. If that does not take care of it clean connectors at the guages and

clean the sockets, check if all the bulbs are working. You don't need to replace

the guages.

[mihai914]

After 30 years of service, even if the bulbs are still working, they have probably developped a burnt area (black film on the glass). Simply buying some new OE type bulbs will make a huge difference.

I agree that LEDs give a better output than the original bulbs but incandescent light spreads better and works better with the design of the VDO gauges.

[Grelber]

On mine, you couldn't see a couple of the lights when on. I checked them, and they worked fine when out. Put them in, and you couldn't see them. Come to find out that the inside of the lenses were really dirty. Cleaned the lenses, and the lights worked fine.

[Fyrmdk914]

Thanks to all for the input. Yes I have turned the knob, and they do dim even further, they just don's get very bright. I have a replacement dash piece that I intend to install next week when I am on vacation. So, I will try all of your suggestions at that time!

[Spoke]

The PO on my 71 bypassed the dimmer on the headlight switch and my gauges are nice and bright. Also replaced all of the bulbs when I bought the car. On my 74, the dimmer is still in the circuit and the gauge lights are very dim when on the brightest setting.

Spoke

[Dave_Darling]

Clean the connections and replace the bulbs; chances are good that you'll have a significant improvement in the light output.

--DD