Dashboard warning lights

[Mic]

Can someone explain something of an oddity?  I refer to the lenses of the dashboard warning lights.  Although this is specifically about Aprilia some of this may concern other models but I will return to the lenses in a minute.

The dashboard of my car has holes for four of these screw-in lenses but looking at a variety of photos on the Web I see several series one Aprilias with four holes although most have only two.  And the colours seem to vary as well, with one red and one yellow being most common but there is a variety, one has two yellow, two red, another has one red and one blue.

But now to the main point of this query, the lenses themselves.  I have four, see photo.  The two on the left have glass, as one would expect, and you can see light through them.  However the other two, on the right, pass no light and if you look at the rear you can see why.  So, what are they for?  Just fillers?  Surely not.  But they are nicely made so not cheap and surely they must have a purpose other than blanking a hole, a hole that need not actually be there.  There might seem to be a tiny hole in the centre of the cone of the one bottom right but not so, you cannot pass a needle through nor light of course.

This puzzle has been discussed by two of our experts and one found that what he had and thought was a normal lens is, in fact, one of these odd, closed jobs.

Can anyone throw any light on the subject and is this peculiar to Aprilias or other models as well?

[lancialulu]

On my late S2 I only have two that just pass the light through although one is slightly more orange in colour. One is trafficator and one is generator. To the right of these I have the horn/flasher boton that alternates with the "horn" push. I thought this was the standard set up but a friend in Holland does not have the flash/horn button on his Aprilia.

Tim

[BlueSky]

I assume you have the instrument panel with the round dials. The extra lenses seem to be a feature of the later 1st series Berlinas. They show up in the manual as 8A and are described as "Lampadina illuminazione apparecchi", whatever that means? Looking at an instrument panel with the four holes the instrument lighting festoon bulbs virtually block the two outside holes making it very difficult to fit any sort of globe fitting there. The owner of that panel also has the same dummy red lenses.

I think originally the centre two holes should be, top red for the dynamo and the bottom orange for the trafficators. According to the parts book there were changes made to the Berlina dash at construction no. 3101 and further at 5490, but those mystery objects don't appear in the parts list or circuit diagram!
My theory is they were going to fit some extra lights there, made the instrument panels then decided not to use them??? Anyone got any better ideas?

Noel

[nistri]

"lampadina illuminazione apparecchi" means light bulb to light up dashboard instruments. Andrea

[Mic]

Thank you for interesting thoughts.  Yes, I do have the round instruments of the series one and the car is 1938 later than chassis 6600 at number 6963.  I think Noel's idea is most probably correct, there was the thought of having illumination but they changed their mind or something happened.  By that time the dash panels would have been made, most likely already on the shelf as would have been produced as a batch surely.  However, these blanks are really nicely made so must have been an expensive way out of a problem.

So I shall put the blanks on the outside holes and keep the middle two for red and yallow.  If there is any change when it comes to installing this part of the car I will report it here.

[davidwheeler]

Mine is 1938 and has but two holes.   Some Fulvias have switches fitted but not connected to anything in particular presumably just to look symmetrical but at least they can be put to some use.

[Mic]

Interesting replies to my query.  Thank you all.  Just spoken to John S and he says that in fifty years he has never seen an Aprilia with four holes in the dash for these little lamps.  So what I have is rare!  Certanly, looking at a variety of photos on Google there are only one or two shown with four lamps.