dim dials

[c.turff]

Hi there. ive got a mk3 1.6 and the dials are very dim. the dimmer switch works fine but the guages are barley visable at night. any thoughts? h cheers

[Ghia15]

A common proble with carpi's and 80's fords.

You can get a white dial kit which helps the visibility at night, you will need to remove the dials from the binacle to do this. While the binacle is stripped you can remove the coloured lenses as they will have clouded over, reducing the light through them.

If you remove the lenses and still want to keep coloured light then coloured bulbs or an LED strop kit can be used.

Somone used an LED strip kit with a dial kit to great effect not long ago on here.

Apart from these options there is not a great deal you can do to improbve the ammount of light on the dials at night.

Doing the dial kit is about an hours work once out of the car and removing the coloured lenses takes mere seconds.

[c.turff]

Can replacment new coloured lenses be found?

[pbar]

Just removing those bulb covers is often all that's needed and is all that some people choose to do.

[Ghia15]

Replacement lenses are not available for the instruments.

You either can remove them and have white light on the dials or put in whatever coulour bulbs you want.

I have a combination of blue LED bulbs for the auxilary dials and white on the main dials with a white dial kit. Looks awesome.

[PeterG2.8]

I hate white dials

[mellow-yellow]

Here you go..
White ones fitted



Brushed Aluminium ones fitted



Ebay link.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290818366923? ... 1586.l2649

[MiniMan]

Any one know if these bulbs will fit behind the dash

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ford-Capri-Su ... 2c7b93b723

they look the part
(sorry to revive an old post wasn't worth opening a new one)

[stevemarl]

No, the instrument bulbs are wedge base, 3w, those are front sidelight bulbs (only blue.)

You need something like http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GREEN-X-10-HA ... 1e83a8c4bf

[pbar]

Also, if you do decide to change the bulbs/instrument lighting then be wary of anything which emits more heat than the standard bulbs do. Thirty year old frail plastics may not take too kindly to that.

[stevemarl]

be wary of anything which emits more heat than the standard bulbs

Yes indeed ! I had a great idea once - just stick 5 w bulbs in, double the brightness and they can`t be that much hotter can they?? Long story short, they melted and burnt the blue covers - to the extent the clear acrylic lens cover was smoke damaged (and wouldn`t clean) fortunately this was long ago when you could still get a new one from Ford....

[MiniMan]

So in short, I need to make sure the bulbs are 3w and no more to avoid damaging the dash fascia

Im thinking of switching the color to blue? Has anyone done this before? I currently have half white leather recaros with white dial kit and think this will finish the interior off nicely.

Thanks Steve and others for your advice! Just check out the link cant find the 3w bulbs in blue!! only red and green, going to email them unless anyone can recommend somewhere else.

Also how many bulbs in total make up the dash cluster?

[MiniMan]

Will these do the job?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/504C-12v-3w-C ... 35d151ff0b

[AndyPandy56]

A few years I had the instrument binacle out from the dash and replaced all the bulbs with like for like Ford items. As a result I can now read all the guages at night without any problem !. For some reason though, the illumination for the four smaller guages remains green, whilst the speedo & rev counter is mostly white !.

[stevemarl]

Will these do the job?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/504C-12v-3w-C ... 35d151ff0b

Yep, those are the ones. It`s worth mentioning that if you can find LED bulbs - (but they MUST have side illumination, not just a narrow beam out the end!!) they do work well. They emit blue light only, whereas a blue bulb just blocks all the other colours (red, yellow, green etc etc) so you`re only getting a fraction of your 3w of energy coming out as light.)

For some reason though, the illumination for the four smaller guages remains green, whilst the speedo & rev counter is mostly white !.

That`s how mine went when it melted the blue covers, it was brighter but grey - there was a hole burnt through.... maybe your top ones have done the same or been removed at some point??

Oh, and there are 4 bulbs, 2at top and one each side. Somebody asked?

[280Brooklands]

A few years I had the instrument binacle out from the dash and replaced all the bulbs with like for like Ford items. As a result I can now read all the guages at night without any problem !. For some reason though, the illumination for the four smaller guages remains green, whilst the speedo & rev counter is mostly white !.

This has happened to mine too!! I can only assume that with age the coloured film off the inside has lost it's tint and has turned white.

[Toecutter]

I installed these for the dial lights, multi directional bulb, I also got rid of the blue bulb covers and covered the surfaces adjacent to the bulb in the clocks casing with reflective foil while I had the clocks apart.
Light output is perfect and a nice deep blue.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-New-Xenon-5 ... 23352d39ee