Instruments

[Paul Johnson]

All,
A recent post via Facebook I think (which I can’t currently locate) showed a renovation/ upgrade of a Fulvia instrument panel with LED bulbs in. Whilst not certain about LED, it did spark my interest as I am in the process of trying to get all the panel lights working on mine and I would imagine such an upgrade would require stripping the panel down so am interested in finding out more. As we all know the bulbs in these panels are a bit miserable and unreliable.
Does anybody know more AND/OR know of a person/Company which renovates these units?

Many thanks
Paul

[nthomas1]

The eleven bulbs are in bayonet-mounted plastic holders fitted from the rear of the panel. Replacement of the bulbs does not require dismantling of the panel but removal of the panel would make replacement much easier, as accessibility to the bulbs with the panel in situ is very tight and requires lying on your back in the footwell with hands squeezed up in the gap.  The black coloured holders can be seen in the first picture below.

I did not use LED bulbs but the procedure for fitting is the same as for conventional bulbs.

Cleaning the copper-trace rear surface of the panel and all contacts is very worthwhile, so removal of the panel has the added benefit of allowing this to take place.  The second picture below shows the copper-trace from my car before and after sanding with very fine emery paper.  I found the dismantling of the panel to be fairly straightforward, and I outlined the steps in my forum thread "Report on (slow) S2 Coupe rebuild progress".  

[lancialulu]

Just replacing the 50 year old bulbs and cleaning the now potentially corroded contacts will bring the panel back. I believe the old bulbs were rated at 3W but modern equivalents are rated at 4 or 5 w. I personally would find the instruments too bright at night with LEDs (be warned), but I do fit LED green bulbs to the 2 indicator marker bulbs and these are perfect for showing you have left your indicators on.....

[Paul Johnson]

Thank you to you both.
Norm, your indexing of the thread (along with the thread itself of course) is proving to be extremely helpful.
Paul