Tach & Speedo

The German shop has new gauges, in KPH or both, expensive, but where else can you get new, also if you take the needles off you have to pre-load the spring, it's not just a matter of popping the old needle off and pushing the new on, you mark the bucket with a felt pen (turn needle to say 4000 rpm and simular position for speedo) pry needle off with two teaspoons, move bucket back to mark and push on new needle, that gives correct pre-load, just thought i'd mention that, and it's right about the indicator leds, very bright, and I still have to play with the inner tubes to try and spread a bit more of the led light around inside, was thinking of using silver tape, maybe when new tacho cable gets here, cheers

The article is buried back a ways so here's a copy-n-paste of that part of it:


Signal indicators: 2x BA9 BA9S 7-LED BAYONET BULBS WHITE LIGHTS FOR 64132 H6W 57 3886X
(2 required)

Tach/Speedo: Ba9s Car Light 9 SMD 5050 LED White Bulbs Lamps 1895 57 T4W 182 1445 6253 12V DC
(4 required)

Fuel/Temp: Ba9s Car Light 5 SMD 5050 LED White Bulbs Lamps 1895 57 T4W 182 1445 6253 12V DC
(1 required)

NOTE: The 4 tach/speedo and 1 fuel/temp LED's must be shortened 1/8" or the gauges will not seat correctly. Simply un-solder the + center terminal and separate the base from the LED cluster. ( HINT: remove the solder from the + terminal hole to aid in replacing the + wire). Trim down the base's edge with a pair of scissors or snips, push the 2 pieces together, reinsert the positive wire into the + center-hole and re-solder. Trim the excess (1/8") wire and smooth the solder surface. The - (ground) looks after it self as you will discover.

These LED's are "Bright White" or about 6000K color temp which will make the orange signal/markers/signal indicators a much brighter orange.

To be clear: I did not use any of the "tin" reflectors for any of the back-lighting. The LED's are completely in the open. The only "tin reflectors" used were for the signals so to trap the light. I considered the "Shiny" metal-foil but it didn't come close to reflecting light like the the glass-mirror. And to be clear on this point: the mirror used was very thin - approx. 2 mm. Check out your local "dollar" store ! Hope this helps.

I have all the LED lights installed, love the indicator ones, really good and bright, gauges are still a bit "dim" (like me I guess), I still have all the tin tubes in place. I was on ebay and noticed LED strip lights, they can be trimmed to a shorter lengths, so was thinking ... I wonder how a strip of LEDS would go glued with the double sided tape they supply into the back of the instrument case ??, should throw heaps of light onto the back of the gauges, just a matter of hooking the wiring up to a bulb lead, i'll give it a go and post some photos, hopefully I wont need sunglasses to see the gauges or to be lit up like a startled kangaroo in a spot light

Hi, I had exactly the same idea with the strip leds but using blue not white and then removing
the glass from a standard bulb and wiring up to that.
Let's see how yours come out,,