gauge Lights

[xhighfidelityx]

Hey,

I got a couple of gauge light bulbs that are out. Does anyone know where I can get replacement bulbs? I can find the actual bulb, but finding the bulb with the plastic clips seems to be impossible. Will I need to solder new bulbs to my old clips? I hope not because my soldering compares to a 3 year old finger painting.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[xhighfidelityx]

Sorry, forgot the details.

1991 D21
Part number on the bulb is PC 185.

[RT22]

I hunted high and low trying to convert to led but found wal mart or any parts store has bulbs. The bulb just pulls out of thew plastic screw in plug and then take the bulb and size at store. I went from 3 watt to 5 watt to brighten up the dash. The extra watts helped a ton and is not so hot as to be a problem. But the bulbs just push into the plastic retainer, not always easy to pull out but it will.

[RT22]

Another thing if the plastic breaks or is in bad shape junkyards are your best friend. I pulled about 5 extra of all sizes as spares.

[xhighfidelityx]

Cool, I will try that. It seemed to be soldered to the plastic piece, so I was a little scared to pull hard. I found the bulbs at O'Reilly's without the plastic piece.

Thanks again.

[RT22]

They are tight, I found using a rubber glove for grip on the bulb helps and tug hard.They have little tails of bent wire that just push into the socket like a blade fuse.

[RT22]

1 more thing if you look at your profile in a post it has the truck listed so that helps us see what model you have, you can look at mine and see mine. I was user here for a while before I noticed that LOL

[Rev_D21]

autolumination.com has all the LED bulbs you will need to convert your cluster. Most of the bulbs you will need are 194 bulbs. They will pull out of those plastic sockets.

[xhighfidelityx]

RT22,

Thanks for the tip about the rubber gloves and my profile information. I didn't realize that it showed that either until now.

Rev,

I will check that out. Might as well upgrade the lights if I am going through the trouble of tearing it out. Thanks.

[RT22]

I did the LED and on the blinkers it was much better, but the ones that are not directly behind the lense like the speed o and tach the 5 watt regular bulbs were actually brighter, mainly as leds have a narrow beam and do not illuminate over a wide area like a bulb, just my opinion. try both it is not that expensive.

[xhighfidelityx]

Alright, sounds good. What colors do you guys recommend? I have the white lettering guages. Do I use the same color all around, or do I use green for the blinkers?

Thanks in advance.

[RT22]

all white or clear unless you want to add some color, the bulbs at autozone come with rubber colored covers and leds come in colors. All just what you want, I stayed clear for max brightness as my old bulbs worked but were pretty dim. The lenses are colored so white will make them look stock but you can go colored and change the effect.

[Rev_D21]

For a clean look I tend to stick an LED of the same color as the lens it going behind. White LEDs tend to washout the look of whatever it goes behind unless the lens is clear...then it looks blue.

[xhighfidelityx]

While I was at the junk yard looking for buckets (Which I was successful and holy cow what a difference!), I found like 20 to 30 bulbs. While I was picking up bulbs like a fat kid at an Easter egg hunt, I came across a different style with a blue boot on them. I thought I would replace all my bulbs with those to see if they made a difference and they gave it a crisp light blue appearance which I really liked. So, I think i will just stick with them. Plus, probably the main reason I was having dash light problems was I had a bad dimmer switch. On a hunch, I picked one or two from the junkyard and decided to replace mine. Turns out mine was broke and was only lighting up my dash halfway...for like 3 years. I am wearing sunglasses at night now, lol.

I really love my little truck and one day when I figure out how to upload pictures to the forums, I will share them, lol.

I think my next project is to give it power steering.

Thanks again for the help and thought I should leave an update because I hate broken forum links, lol.

[RT22]

search on pic posting it is real simple as long as you have them hosted somewhere like photo bucket.