Re: Dash lights 1948 Super 8

Posted by HH56 On 2023/11/6 12:15:23

People do come up with miracle finds but no idea if those were a separate service part or if so, our vendors would still have any. I expect you will need to find another instrument cluster and remove them for reuse. Maybe someone has one thrown on a shelf or has a derelict or rusted out parts car not worth restoring and you can get the cluster out of that. Only see one listed on ebay at the moment and it is somewhat expensive. Of course there is no guarantee the filters would still be present in another cluster.

If another cluster is not an option, a couple of other possibilities to provide the ultraviolet light would be to use a base or shell adapter or break apart regular incandescent bulbs to get and reuse the base. Add a UV LED and resistor to the base to plug in as a regular bulb would. Ebay has the adapters and LEDs are on Amazon and Ebay. Another option if there is room inside the cluster might be to use a length of LED strip lighting around the edges of the cluster. Downside to using LEDs is they are polarity sensitive.

Of course, all of the last options would presume the old UV paint on the gauges is still working and will be energized at the same wavelength the UV LEDs produce.