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Sheading light on the switch bezel

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AUSMHLY

AUSMHLY

Obi Wan
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Hello all.

As you know, the Healey gauges hardly light up compared to modern gauges. Certainly not enough to shed/share any light on the center toggle switches on a BJ8.

Driving at night, one finds a switch by brail. Did I just flip on the overdrive or the wiper.

I'm thinking of installing some sort of light under the dash top, over the switch bezel.
Maybe a couple led's to hide/mount under the dash top and splice into the panel light switch?

Any suggestions as what type of light... neon, led, light bulb, etc. to use.

Anyone done this modification successfully and can share?

My car is positive.

Thank you, Roger
 
Aircraft, directed external lighting, post lights. Years ago I used these on an AH , really make the gages visible with no glare. Well shielded & directed. At the time, they were mil surplus for a few cents. I also got them from my employer at Lockheed. You can see the modern equivalent here:
https://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/el/instrumentlighting.html
https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/elpages/instrpostlite.php

Might still be able to find them surplus. They were incandescent at the time & not polarity sensitive. I don't want to ruin the clean original look of my present BN2 dash, but they really aren't too obtrusive. The old gages can be viewed much better with outside the gage external light such as this. Sort of like mini-spots.

Here is a pic of a very old style that I still have left over.
D
 

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ausmhly, i used the "post" lights in the past as suggested by dave, they worked very well,on my bj7 i removed the colored plastic "defusers" from the outer ring on the guages and replaced it with a clear plactic just to keep dust from getting into the guage it allows what otherwise is low light to shine on the guage without obstruction giving much brighter lighting. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yesnod.gif
 
Hi Guys,

I found some lights that I think will work.
They're made to plug into the cigarette lighter. I was thinking of removing that addapter and splicing the wires into the panel light togle.

The question is: My car is positive. Can I do this?
Is it as simple as reversing the wires? Red wire (power) becomes the ground and black wire (ground) becomes hot wire on the togle switch?

Sounds to simple. Am I right?
Roger
 
Well I tell you what you can do Roger. Connect about a 1/2 amp fuse to one leg of the lamp wiring and hook it up as "POS" gnd. If the light lights reverse the wiring connections and see if it still lights. If it lights in both configurations, You are good to go. Further I think a bullet connector already exists in the dash light,Red/WH wire circuit. Consequently, all you need to do is replace the single connector with a common double and no splicing will be required---Keoke
 
Roger,

If you have real light bulbs and not LEDs they are not polarity sensitive. Use a fuse as Keoke suggested. My car is still at the body shop or I would take those pictures of my homemade brackets with red LEDs that fit under the edge of the dash board/cowl that I promised. They light up all of the switches on the dash.
 
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