My 1980 SA green instrument cluster at night is dimmer than I would like it to be. I have checked the bulbs and they are all good. I have recently installed a new dimmer switch. And have tried eliminating the dimmer altogether.

I have noticed that SA's differ from the FB's in that the SA's are backlite only. FB's are also illuminated from the front (at least the series 2 is). There are two lights on the top of the instrument cluster in front of the gauges.

Unfortunately, the front half of a FB instrument cluster does not fit onto the rear half of a SA instrument cluster. At least not with out some work and the FB sockets on the rear of the cluster do not match the SA plugs.

Are there brighter bulbs that I can purchase and put in as a direct replacement?

Does anyone have any thoughts / ideas on this?

 

depends on the size of the bulbs. If they are 194 bulbs there are some bulbs that might help you out. But normally anything smaller is unfortunately unavailable to my knowledge

 

yeah seriously i avoid driving my 7 at night because of that

 

Do what I did.. Put a S5 cluster in

 

what the hell happened to your dash?

 

what the hell happened to your dash?

 

Use LED's

 

Tape a Maglight to your steering coloum.

 

How clean are your guages? If the plastic has yellowed or faded it might not be letting as much light thru as it could.

 

gonzz,

Did it take a lot of work to put in the S5 cluster? Do the plugs match or did you have to rewire?

It looks great, the size must be similar. Did you take the gauges and face out of the S5 cluster and install them into the S1 cluster housing?

 

there is a a how to on www.iluvmyrx7.com
or something like that.