The instrument cluster lights on my 1984 Trans Am aren’t very bright. The bulbs are 194s and the back of the gauges are a bright orange which gives an orange glow. I tried installing white 194 LEDs but the lighting now looks more pink than orange. It is brighter but I don’t like the look.
Anyone have a recommendation on what to do? Would this work better if I got amber or red LED bulbs?

 

Get rid of the orange gauges cover and get light blue/off white one. They made 2 different colors for some reason. I had the lighter version with leds and was very bright compared to regular bulbs

 

What piece is the gauge cover your referring to? Is that the large black housing cover that has the back painted orange?
I'd prefer to keep the orange colored dash because the lights in my defrost switch and heater control panel won't match if I switch to white.

 

My Camaro's were stubbornly dimmer than new despite all my contact cleaning and new bulbs as well as cleaning up all the chassis grounds, cables, etc.

It was only when I replaced the original alternator cable with a new, bigger one one along with a new high-amp alternator that the whole car lit up like a Christmas tree. Just like new. Amazing.

 

I changed the backlight to blue, added a 140mph speedo and changed the needles from orange to white

First I converted the back of the gauges from orange to gloss white

Attachment 338042

Attachment 338043

Then I taped off and did the same with the front bezel. I also repainted the front part black.

Attachment 338044


Then I painted all the needles white

Attachment 338045


I used these bulbs for the blue back light 194 wedge bulbs with 5 LEDs


My first time lighting it up I found too many cold spots.



There were some empty spaces in the cluster so I scraped the mask from the traces and added more bulbs. here is the final result

Attachment 338046




I am really pleased

 

For reference - here’s a picture of my gauges

 

LEDs are the answer...

 

So I found a way to solve my issue and retain the factory orange hue.
The back of the cluster face was a pinkish orange color from the factory but the back of the gauges are a bright orange. I went to Home Depot and found a pretty close bright orange spray paint to match the gauge and painted the back of the cluster face.
This pic shows factory color orange on the top and newly sprayed orange on the bottom. I also have a gauge in the pic for comparison



This is the paint I used



Here’s a before and after pic next to each other so you can see the difference. I am using LEDs and I also added lights to the two empty spaces on the back of the cluster. It’s a little less white than the picture makes it look. The LEDs are from the auction site and are 194 LED Lights Bulbs 68 SMD Xenon 6000K White.





Now I just need to figure out how to remove all the light swirl marks from the cluster lens

 

Great job! I didn't think that would have made such a difference. Great idea adding extra bulbs in empty slots that helps alot too. I can tell you from experience do not use a power buffer to remove swirls lol.

 

To polish: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...ml#post5912933
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/inte...nstrument.html

 

Ok - so I kept working on this and got the light more orange. I ended up spray painting the inside of the gauge housing orange as well. It was a pain masking off the housing but this is looking really good now.

 

I hope your dimmer works... you'll need to use it now lol.

 

White LEDs washout color, which I think you noticed with your initial installation. It's like adding white to paint to lighten its color. For a truer orange, you'll need to use orange LEDs, which probably don't exist, so probably amber, which tends to look orange-ish in LEDs. Red LEDs might work, too.

Regarding dimming, in case you haven't already discovered, electrical systems in 3rdgens won't dim LEDs. So if you want to be able to dim your dash lights, then you'll need to go back to incandescent bulbs.

So amber or red incandescent bulbs(not clear bulbs with those little colored silicone bulb covers) will give you better color, will be slightly brighter than covered clear bulbs, AND will be dimmable. They won't be as bright as the LEDs you've installed, but they'll function correctly, and they'll probably be brighter than they were originally, given all the color you've added, along with the extra bulbs.

 

The dimmer dims the LEDs in my cluster a bit. There is a point where they just stop working, but I can get the brightness to where I want

 

Yep the leds I had dimmed real well with factory dimmer. Never had to dim them before the leds though.