The instrument lights through to
the
As the warning lights were quite
effective I only upgraded the four instruments cluster
lights initially.
The picture below took a 2.5 second exposure with
widest possible aperture setting, so don’t look too bad!
(Dash Lights Std.jpg)
As the bulbs are directly behind the
dials, most of the light from the standard 2.2W bulbs
gets reflected back behind the instruments and very
little makes it way past to be of any use.
Therefore I used a 5 SMD LED 360° Ultra White
Bulbs from Amazon that have the equivalent of a 10W bulb
but with a quarter the power consumption of the 2.2W
bulb. (5 SMD LED 360° Ultra White Bulbs.jpg)
I
found the bulbs were a bit of a squeeze once mounted in
to the bulb holder going through the hole in the
instrument cluster, but the top and bottom edge of the
bulbs plastic base were gently filed down a fraction so
they would fit easier.
LED bulbs are more powerful than a standard
filament bulb, use less power but they also have a
positive and negative side, so once slotted in to the
bulb holder and placed in to the instrument cluster
don’t worry if they don’t work, just remove the bulb
holder and rotate 180 degrees.
This is made easier if you have already filed the
edges down slightly. (Dash Lights LH Std & RH LED.jpg)
Above
the bulbs on the right are the upgraded LED while the
left is the standard bulb using the same camera settings
as for the picture of the instrument cluster bulbs were
upgraded. As
you can see there is a significant difference, the light
is a nice white and you can see all of the fuel and
temperature gauges.
The standard bulbs on the other side mean you can
see much of the reading but little of the pictogram for
battery condition and the oil pressure has very little
visible. But once the upgrade is complete, all is clear.
(Dash Lights LED.jpg)
It
wasn’t until I was experimenting with exposure settings
that I discovered that the heater controls were
illuminated!
So these were next, I used a similar style of wide angle
LED bulb; Ultimate 286 3 x Wide Angle BLUE LED’s Anti
Canbus from
www.ultraleds.co.uk. (Ultimate 286 3 x Wide Angle
BLUE Leds
Anti Canbus.jpg)
As
you can see, everything suddenly becomes nicely
illuminated and isn’t overpowering, the heated rear
window switch warning light uses the same bulb so this
was upgraded too.
Despite the cigarette lighter being in place,
with the ashtray open you can see the full glow, with
the ash tray closed there is a line of light visible so
I can now find the ashtray in the dark too. (All
LED.jpg)
Of
all the interior lights the clock was probably the best
illuminated instrument and because the light looked
creamy compared to the LED’s I decided that this, the
cigarette lighter and the interior light had to be
upgraded to everything looked the same.
Due to the size holed the bulbs had to fit
through for the clock and cigarette lighter I had to use
a different style of wide angled bulb, this time I used
White BA7S Bayonet Ultra Bright 12v Dashboard LEDS from
ACEPARTS on EBay. (BA7S Bayonet Ultra Bright 12v
Dashboard LEDS.jpg ) The
interior light was a little harder due the polarity of
the facelift interior wiring polarity; it is backwards
for an LED bulb to be used as a direct replacement.
I did however find on EBay and Amazon a
Velcro was used so that should there be a need to change
the LED unit, it could be done easily and the difference
to the interior lighting now means that it is possible
to read a map with straining your eyes! (Interior No LED
Fitted.jpg & Interior Light LED.jpg
In fact you can now see on the right
hand picture, the heater vent knob is now visible and
more of the steering lock is illuminated.
The whole upgrade came in at less than £20 and
that includes the replacement of the standard warning
light bulbs which for a single bulb from Halfords was as
much as a pair of the instrument clusters LED bulbs.
People within the club may be surprised that I
have done this, but despite being a purist, I do accept
that we do have to make concessions to ensure our own
safety, that of others and to our cars so we can enjoy
them for a long time to come.
Plus it is one of those subtle changes which
unless I had told you about them, you would have never
known!
Please note: No consequential damages accepted