LED instrument panel lights
 

I am thinking about replacing the instrument panel bulbs with LED's. This question is for those of you who have done this. Is the instrument panel any brighter, at night, with the LED bulbs versus the incandescent bulbs? Car is a 65 GTO with standard gauges. Any help appreciated. Thank you.

My GTO has incandescent bulbs and my LeMans has LEDs. I'll send you an A-B compare photos tonight. My only complaint is that the dimmer switch will not work correctly with LEDs unless you convert it to a PWM controller to adjust brightness. I ordered some newer LEDS that supposedly will reduce brightness using the stock dimmer. It'll arrive Monday and I'll let you know how they are.

gto4ben: Thank you. Will be waiting for your reply.

If the LEDs are too bright, try converting them to incandescent globes.
:)

I used the leds and the panel is much better without being too bright.much nicer!

George

Here are the comparisons. The cell phone camera sets the white balance automatically and that makes the incandescent appearance look whiter. Also, The Instrument cluster lens needs some cleaning on the LeMans.

Did you use white or blue LED's on your Lemans?

white

Here's a side by side comparison of GE 1895 incandescent bulb with the BA9S LED lit with 14V. What you see reflected on the instrument face depends on the background color. The LED enhances the blue a lot when it reflects a blue background while the incandescent looks more white on the same background.

Received the rheostat controllable LEDs today. Their brightness are indeed controllable by voltage. The BA9S shown cuts out at ~7.5V while the dimmable version continues to light down to just under 3V. The cell phone compensated for the ambient light so I tried to show the brightness variation using a camera with manual modes.

gto4ben:

Thank you for your advice. It helps a lot. Looks like I will be ordering the dimmable white LED's like you have. Thanks again.

I bought LEDs for my 1976 Firebird dash also. It is brighter and I really like them. They do not dim but it is not a problem. I have replaced all of the bulbs on my car with LED except for the headlights but they are way expensive.

In post 6, there is a strange Park RNDSL that appears to be on the column?
;)

PRNDSL was from the factory on SuperHydramatic equipped Pontiacs from 1956 through 63 if I remember right. Besides that, the S stood for "Super", which is pretty cool.

Ben's profile says he has '67 GTO, '67 LeMANs, '71 LeMans, but no one said they are stock.