bureau13

At least on the '86.5, there is a light in the middle of the tach, presumably for some gas mileage certification purpose, that comes on to tell you you should shift. The thing is, it thinks you should always shift if you're not in 5th, you're somewhere between not touching the accelerator and "accelerating briskly," and...well that's about it. I've had it come on under 2K rpm. CLEARLY, I'm not shifting then!

I can't remember if your car is an auto, but I guess you wouldn't have this abomination in that case...

buccicone

Mine is an Automatic.

Ed Scherer

Howard, I'm hoping you'll have the "definitive photo" of the back of the PCB with all the bulb polarities clearly marked. That'll be a great service to the community, and with your permission, I'll update my guide with that photo and updated recommendations for bulbs.

mskar

If Howard had success with the pics I posted feel free to use those. I had GREAT success with your document so thank you very much. I found another picture online for the HVAC, you might want to throw that one in to your doc, the bulb holder is not really visible. I almost started down the road to disassembling further (read: breaking little plastic tabs and swearing a lot) until I saw that the bulb holder was actually hidden but accessible.

I have not put my resistors inline with the pod switches yet, ran out of time today. Your parts list was excellent and saved me time and money!

I went with natural white for all of my interior courtesy lighting, I think natural white looked better with the dark burgundy of my interior, cool white looked harsh. When it came to the main instrument bulbs, I also went natural white, maybe not the best decision. Because some of the instrument/hvac/etc bulbs are only available in cool white, I think I may change mine next time I have the pod out. Since the courtesy lights and the instrument lights are rarely used at the same time, matching cool instruments with warmer interior looks best of both worlds imo.

howdog928

Having put most of mine in the wrong way round to start with, I'd say no as they are all working now. But do make sure you have a couple spares just in case. One other thing to note from my errors here is don't try & force the new bulbs in (easier to do when using a pair of pliers), if you can't put it in by hand (with a snug fit) just gently bend out the metal prongs until you can. The old incandescents may have warped the plastic casing with heat over the years, so not always a good fit now. Ask me how I know! lol

howdog928

Jeff, yes mine is an automatic & I've never noticed the light before. Sounds like a good idea going faulty. There is one 'space' for a bulb on my pod that had nothing in it, on the battery/oil side though. However when I shone a light in there, nothing was showing on the other side.

M. Requin

Here's some more info on this: https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...ervo-lamp.html . I also understand one of the unused buld spaces is for cat temp warning, used in the Japanese market.

buccicone

Thanks Howard. Got the LED's installed on '86.5 (Blackie)

kevinr

Following this thread with interest, but to be clear: the LEDs do *not* dim, correct?

Ducman82

They don't dim without a dim controller. The stock rheostat can't worth with voltages that low

howdog928

Correct, but they actually don't seem to be too bright anyway. But if you do want the dimming capability you need one of Ed Scherer's units that he makes. I have one & plan on putting that in too.

howdog928

I'm a bit slower than others on here, but just for photo options, here is the back of my cluster with bulb negatives marked with the black marker.

howdog928

OK, need help here.

So, with the pod connected up in the car (not fully re-installed) all the warning lights look to be working as well as all the pod switches - win!

However, with the 3 wedges connected as per the instructions from Garage 9 and tested in place beforehand, the 3 wedges are not lighting up. This was the problem before I started this endeavor with the main gauge illumination not working. Time to fix it!

I'm not very electrically minded, but do have a multimeter and power test probe. Any thoughts on where to start tracing this down?

bureau13

The stock rheostat that dims the gauge illumination...that doesn't actually dim warning lights or pod switches, does it? Perhaps it is faulty, and basically turning those lamps off?

howdog928

I forgot to mention, I have a brand new one from Roger, plus I also tried it just bypassing the rheostat with a jumper wire. No joy with either.