Location of grond for instrument lights?

[richard]

I cleaned the ground for the battery, and the windows now go up and down faster, now I'd like to improve the brightness of the instrument lights by cleaning the ground. I've read the posts about changing the bulbs from the 2 or 3 watt to a higher wattage. With the lower wattage, I can only see the lit gauges after sunset, provided there is no moon shining.

For those who are interested, I purchased 5 watt bulbs at NAPA Auto Parts (USA) part number: 17177. These are noticeably brighter so now I can see them lit at dusk!

[pauljones]

When I striped my dash out,most grounds went to the nurled nut on the back of the tacho,then from here a single but same size ground wire went to a bolt just above the transmission tunnel behind the dash.

[stugilmour]

Agree with Paul. The black ground wires kind of daisy chain around from instrument to instrument and attach with either ring connectors to the knurled mounting nuts (metal holders) or directly to the bulb holders (plastic). The main dash ground is located right hand side of the lower dash, and is a bolt going into a tapped hole on the frame that holds the body on the car. IIRC the Red / White instrument lighting power wires and the Black ground wires are sort of separate from the main loom to allow for easy removal of the individual instruments without removing the entire dash. I believe during my re-wire I ran a main ground within the main loom between the two minor instruments each side, but left a little slack in the individual wires between the instruments.

Richard, are the bulbs you purchased screw base or wedge base? I get a wedge base for your call-up number, but could be mistaken. I believe they are screw base bulbs in stock form. Mine are all changed to wedge bases, which are the currently available replacements.

http://www.britishwiring.com/Push-in-Bu ... p/c614.htm

http://www.britishwiring.com/Clip-in-Bu ... p/c612.htm

If wedge shaped, I got 168 LL (long life) bulbs off the rack at the local auto parts store. They are 4.9 watts, and do improve the minor instruments, but are a bit weak for the two major instruments. I have a 5 watt wedge halogen on order from LBC and am going to try it in the speedo or tach to see how it works.

In the same order I accidentally included a full set of halogen screw based bulbs (two 10 watt for major and four 5 watt for minor instruments). These six bulbs will be surplus to my needs as did not recall I had changed to wedge bulbs. Shoot me a PM if these would work for you and you want to try them. They are quite spendy from LBC but would cut you a great deal!