CO,

I was looking for a way to brighten my stock gauges on my 69 442. I came across a couple companies selling LED bulb that are supposed to plug right into the existing bulb sockets. Has anyone used these before? If so, can you direct me to the correct part number/vendor?

Thanks
Sean

 

I just ordered some off eBay for my gauges. Most stated as 194 reolacements. Makes a big difference in the gauge brightness including cleaning up the gauge housings. I bought 5 led bulbs. Cheaper to order from a seller where they come overseas than a US location even though I'm sure it's the same bulbs.

 

What he said. I have the 194 bulbs in stock & offer them when I restore the gauges. They do make a big difference.

 

Do the LED lights dim with the headlight switch. I thought I read with the LED lights, it was either bright or off is that true? Any pictures?

 

They do dim just a TINY bit before shutting off completely. Pretty much full bright of nothing. Someone on here posted about installing a resistor? in line that allows you to dim them? I don't know anything about that though.
I don't have any good pictures right now.

 

The rheostat in your headlight switch is actually a wire wound variable resistor. LED's don't dim like a traditional incandescent bulb. To fully dim an LED, you have to vary the on/off pulses (called PWM, or Pulse Width Modulation) to the bulb. That is done with a special dimmer. Here is an example of one that could be used in our cars: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Auto-Meter-9...1b6905&vxp=mtr. It would get wired in to the dash light circuit.

 

Just in case you have not picked up your LED lights yet, I bought these up through Amazon for just under $6 plus shipping. It came out to about $1 per bulb. I just installed them yesterday to every in-dash light that I could get to and they work great.

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Chip
I will pull the trigger with the Amazon link. Good price.

Sean

 

Here is an item from China, so shipping is slow, but the 5050 chip is about the brightest on the market for this type of application and I don't think the price can be beat.

 

I bought mine from
https://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/...er,WLED,21,201:


I prefer the 5 smd led WLED-xHP5-CAR (not the CAN bus) I liked the blue lights to the white ones. They dim very well.
The 6 smd led WLED-WHP6 was not available at the time - I would have tried that one first although they only come in white.
NOTE BENE - These lights are polarized so you have to plug them in the right way. If they are reversed they will not light up.