Can anyone tell me if this metal dash light housing can be painted or just leave it alone? And I was thinking about putting those LED type lights in place of the original style or do you think it will be too bright? Thanks

 

It can be painted. From the factory, these are almost a completely flat black non reflective color. I paint them with the Krylon Flat Black. As far as the LED, All I can say is originally those lights were pretty dim. If the LED 's are a lot brighter it might look kind of funny if you are trying to go for a OE look.

 

As Joe mentioned, yes.

I have a whack of them I'm planning to sandblast and repaint. One of the things about lumination that sucks with these light pods is the factory never painted the inside of the pod where the light is. I plan to paint the inside (by hobby brush) with a light sky blue - like the inside of the instrument pods are - to get better lighting through the blue diffusers.

Not sure if you can use LED bulbs in the existing light harness this option is used with, but you can try it and see what happens but I think they will be too bright and they won't respond to the headlight rheostat. The rheostat feature is defeated with LEDs and you will get either ON or OFF when trying to adjust those interior lights.

 

I took mine apart and sprayed the inside white and the outside black. It wasn't too bad, you just have to pry back the metal pinch spots and separate the two pieces. With the factory bulbs, 168 or 194 I can't remember, they shined pretty nice with the blue defuser. I have since changed my bulbs to LED's and they are really bright! Almost too bright but it still looks good. To be honest I haven't tried dimming them like Allen said to see if their dimmable yet. I will try to post some pics soon so you can check it out.

 

What do you mean by blue diffuser? When I took apart the dash, this housing piece was the only thing I saw come out of there. I appreciate all the responses in reference to painting this housing. Getting some different ideas and options really helps.

 

There are two blue dash light lenses that attach to the underside of the metal dash light housings on both side of the steering wheel. The same screw that mounts the metal housing on the underside and gauge bezal, secures there lenses.

 

I assume that the lens are plastic I assume? Mine are missing, do you know if Fusick's or any the other places might carry this? Thanks

 

Yes
The lenses are reproduced. You can also get them from some of the guys on this site who part out cars. If your car doesn't have the interior lighting option, you only need one for the heater/AC.

 

I was looking at these Blue dash lamp lens filters in the OPGI catalog and it says they were for 70-71 cars, I have a 72. Does anyone know if this is true or not?

 

The OPGI catalogue is wrong. The diffuser lenses are for 70-72.

 

Thanks Allan

 

Just a thought -
Scott Winn (oldspackrat) and Eric Jensen (Jensenracing77) are both fairly close to you. I believe both of them will have these lenses if you're looking for OEM parts in decent shape. Both guys are in Indiana.

I also have these parts but it would cost more to ship to USA than its worth.