Dash lights and needles.

[don simon]

I decided to brighten up the dash and put some LED bulbs in there. What a palava! Getting the dash apart is the easy bit, I now have fewer working bulbs than before as I it was getting dark and I had to give. Life would be so much easier if power could be supplied from a bench.
Second and more interesting is that while playing I dislodged three needles from fuel guage, temp guage and rev counter.
I put them back but fuel tank is way over full, temp shows massive overheating and idle revs show at 4500rpm. So something is wrong...
Is there a trick or will they settle down? Or have I knackered the dash? :clap

 

[solarman216]

with ignition off, do temp and revs = zero? if yes then you have damaged somthing electrical or a bad conection, re the fuel this does not zero so if you had half a tank of fuel this is where you should replace the needle, Rick

 

[don simon]

No they're all half cocked, So just a question of getting them out and repositioning them then?

 

[solarman216]

Sounds like it, the rev counter should be on zero, the temp about 3mm at the tip below the white bar, the fuel is more tricky as it is magneticaly held at the last position, so be very carefull not to rotate the spindle when removing the needle and replace it in the position = how much fuel you have, Rick

 

[don simon]

Fuel should be less of a problem as long as I remember where the needle sits when nearly empty.

Thanks.

 

[Banshee]

I've been in the exact same position myself mate, I didn't take any reference photos like an idiot and had to guess it and got it right after a few messes.

I did the LED swap myself and ended up going back to normal bulbs as the LED's caused some unsightly white spots even when I scuffed the bulbs with some emery paper as advised.

 

[don simon]

I've been in the exact same position myself mate, I didn't take any reference photos like an idiot and had to guess it and got it right after a few messes.

I did the LED swap myself and ended up going back to normal bulbs as the LED's caused some unsightly white spots even when I scuffed the bulbs with some emery paper as advised.

They shouldn't have fallen out, or I wasn't expecting them to, but I went looking for other bulbs behind the circuit board as there don't appear to be enough on the rear.

 

[macabethiel]

Balast Resistor anywhere ?

I am not familiar with the back of your instrument cluster but certainly on BL vehicles there was a ballast resistor that plugged into the back of the circuit board and if this was faulty or not plugged in right all the gauges would over read ?