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Tach & Speedo 9 years 7 months ago #4557

  • Lucien-Harpress
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Yeah, actually getting into the gauges is easy-peasey. I've refurbished early Goldwing gauges, and those require either carefully prying up a chrome ring or cutting it and gluing it back together. A total PITA. On these? A couple screws and it's out.

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Tach & Speedo 9 years 7 months ago #4588

  • Petez13
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Hi scotch,
On similar subject I tried fitting LED bulbs to the clocks and found that the LED bulbs didnt spread the light very well and ended up with dark areas within the clocks. did you have the same problem or did you only replace the bulbs in the indicator panel below?
one reason for the LED's was the clocks were getting hot with the bulbs that were in there, admittedly they were 4w, not 3.4 but found even they got fairly hot.

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Tach & Speedo 9 years 7 months ago #4595

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I replaced all the bulbs in the cluster including the signals. The only metal reflectors used were the tubes for the signals I did something in addition which I believe helped as much as the LED's them-self. First, I painted the entire inside of the housing as it had turned yellowish in color due to age. I then Cut small pieces of glass mirror to fit each flat area and used a thin foam two-sided tape to attach all the pieces. There are no dark areas as you referred. The difference ( for night driving) is very noticeable and satisfactory. I can look at a glance read the dials. With the stock bulbs I would have to look and wait a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust. The stock bulbs were poor for internal illumination. The LED's make the dials "Pop". It's impossible to drive with a signal on even during daytime as the LED indicators are very bight.
1980 KZ 1300 sr# KZT30A-009997
Always High - Know Fear !

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Tach & Speedo 9 years 7 months ago #4599

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Ok, not sure why I've not had the same results, as I also painter the inside and then used shiny metal tape to line the inside of the clocks. And then adjusted the metal tubes that have the tags folded over, maybe your LED's are brighter than mine??

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Tach & Speedo 9 years 7 months ago #4601

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Topic #2135 lists the LED's I used. The difference may be that your LED's are the shorter version ( fewer LED's per light) and may not have LED's on the end as well? In that same topic/reply you'll note I had to shorten some of the the LED's bases in order to not have them contact with the back of the dial-face-plates which would not allow the speedo. and tach. to sit in the housing correctly.. Shortening the tin-base was the easiest part of the whole job. For the photo-geeks: Canon T2i: Tv, Dark room,1/10th,ISO400, Standard color, AEB= "O". The picture gives a fair and realistic appearance. I had the cluster apart to replace 2 burned-out bulbs and to re-calibrate the fuel gauge so it was not a whole lot of effort to convert to LED's, paint and mirror the inside while everything was apart. I'd do it again without hesitation but for some, this could be a big challenge and not worth the risk of damaging the internals.
1980 KZ 1300 sr# KZT30A-009997
Always High - Know Fear !
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Tach & Speedo 9 years 7 months ago #4604

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Hi Again, thanks for the photo, yes your clocks are a lot brighter than mine. I used a single LED per bulb and I guess you used multi, the only multi LED per bulb that I found are the capless type which I was thinking of converting to. Maybe it's me but I couldn't search and find topic 2135,, as I would like to see the bulbs/LED's you have used.
You have what I want, that's a speedo in km, my z13 came from California and the bike now lives in Gibraltar so it has MPH in big and km in small which makes for hard reading, not sure if there is a km overlay for these,,
Anyway back to the bulbs would like to see which you have used, if I can only find previous topic.
cheers Pete

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