Very Dim Intrument Panel Lights

[TomoHawk]

You might even try patching in a 12V battery direct to the gauges or the dash harness, bypassing all the connectors, to see if the connectors are the problem.

[skyc110]

Razor

do you have a 240K GT ? cause Im facing the same prob.?

I think many reasons contribute in that

1- check the contact points (14 pin behind the tachm. & 6 pin

behind the watch) split them and put WD40 & contact cleaner

2- take the nine bulbs awa their bases (clean, file , push the bulb

terminals a bit away to increase the friction

3- well we have to know that the actual problem (dimming) is caused by

the reflectors on the meters them self !!! they are not phosphoric ??

(same like the new cars... but I think this has no solution) may be the

car dealer will study that and coming out with a spray give a reflection

features.!?

Bu Zamil

[sblake01]

I wouldn't suggest the use of WD40 on electrical connections. It's conductive.

[aarc240]

Razor

If you have an early '73 car you may find that it was one of the less smart 'features' from Nissan.

On doing a rebuild of the instrument panels from 2 really early cars (both VIN less than 500) I found that the blue plastic dome over the bulbs had been painted on the OUTSIDE.

This white paint effectively reduced the light output by about 50%!!!!!

Very definitely factory, been done by masking with a slip over mask and spray painted. Also, both instrument panels identical.

May be significant that both were imperial (mph) gauge sets.

I'd try bypassing the reostat first, then bypass direct from the battery to the gauge side of the reostat.

If that doesn't help, pull and clean the bulbs and the multipole connector to the panel.

If nothing seems to make any difference, pull the whole instrument set out and dismantle to check those blue bulb covers.

[hls30.com]

Razors last post in this thread was in April of 2004,

He probably figured our wearing sunglasses at night can cause the issue he had here two years ago-but your answer was good!

Will

[Razor]

actually I havent fixed it yet or dont even know if its still dim...

hahaha

I've been on holidays before then stored the car in the garage and havent driven the car since then.

Will keep that in mind

[hls30.com]

Sorry-didn't mean to speak for you, just figured with no followup in two years the problem had got the pinkslip!

[aarc240]

I figured the problem was probably 'yellow canaried' (ie defected)!

Much the same as 'pink slipped'.

Elther way, the oddity of the painted blue domes was something that any owner of an early C110 240k would be interested in.

[khughes]

blue domes? that is pretty cool.. mine are green, with half the dome covered in white paint, as you said, obviously spray painted

[aarc240]

If you want them, I'm pretty sure I kept a set.

My gauges now illuminate orange.

edit:

just pulled apart a couple of later panels and they are green like yours!

[Alfadog]

Blue is the worst colour you could have . . . no wonder they changed that quickly! Were they really blue??

[khughes]

thanks, but i am attempting to replace my whole cluster with independant guages (if i can get it through engineering that is, the guages are autometer's)