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38 year old light bulbs

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W

Winston

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While driving about last night, I determined that the dash board gauge lights really were not bright enough for my old eyes.
Who has a scary story about replacing gauge bulbs. I'm guessing I should just enjoy the ambiance of pale yellow light and try to appease the dark lord Lucas.
There is one other thing I have to consider , if they are to be replaced from behind the walnut I will have to enlist my wife's help because she has smaller hands. Possible recipe for disaster all around?
 
His do too they are are just too dim for him???---Keoke
 
Why are you driving at night??? You must have driving lights!!
To answer your question, they are a pain and is it possible they are just dirty??? Wayne
 
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/iagree.gif---Keoke
 
I was hoping to see an adaptation of the LED's. Great idea, an LED bulbs that will fit into the original sockets; I guess it is too much to ask for.
 
My suggestion is to skip the dash lights and only drive at night. Then you'll not have to worry about the oil pressure gauge.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I was hoping to see an adaptation of the LED's. Great idea, an LED bulbs that will fit into the original sockets; I guess it is too much to ask for.


[/ QUOTE ]

This place has LED bulbs that I believe will fit our Triumphs, at least I checked on the ones for the TR6. If the Tr4 are the same then they should fit.

Autolumination

I toyed with the idea of changing all my gauge lights to blue, but that would require pulling out all the little green plastic domes in the gauges, and I didn't want to hack my gauges up that way. If I ever come across a complete set in good shape for a decent price I might just try it.
 
I like the idea of a bright LED for the instruments. I find the TR4 instruments dim. The TR3 ones with the light out in the open and going through the "window" into the instrument seems brighter to me. If anyone has tried these LEDs in a TR4 type instrument, let us know how they worked.
 
Something odd I just came across while googling around on this subject. This site cross-references the Lucas 987 (what TRF lists for dash instrumentation) as a 24V 3W bulb. If this is so, no wonder it's so dim, it's only getting half the design voltage.

On the LED's, don't TR6's use an E10-base screw-in bulb instead of the BA7 bayonet-type? If so, you'd need one from this page with an E10 base and an inverted lens (as the TR6 gauges don't shine through the gauge, they shine light around the edges, or at least they do in our 69) to have any chance of it working. Unfortunately I wouldn't expect to see any better responses from these LEDs than are gotten from the factory bulbs since LEDs are directional, they relies on the lens to diffuse & scatter the light to imitate an incandescent bulb.
 
Dotanukie:
Please put the full web address. The one you provided does not work for me. I looked at the other site posted and found the price around $16 including shipping a little high for one instrument light. I don't want to experiment with the lights, burn up the plastic defusser etc.; I just want to copy some body that has done it. Several months ago, there was a picture of a TR6 dash at night and it look as bright as a 3 cell green flash lights. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
I don't know what happened to that link, why it's suddenly not working. Just tried it myself and got the same error.

Anyway, just try the base address, leave off the otherleds part.

https://autolumination.com/

Just tried this and it seems to work.

I thought the TR6 dash bulbs were the E10 type, and I was looking at the frosted lens LED's (under other automotive LED bulbs, about halfway down the page), which claim to scatter the light in an even glow. Those bulbs are only $2.99 each. I have an old oil pressure gauge that I was thinking of removing the green plastic diffuser from and getting one bulb and trying it out. For a few bucks it's worth the experiment, I'd love to do the dash in blue lights.
 
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