Dull dash gauge lights - rallye cluster

What I learned here was to use Sylvania #2825 bulbs and ground the gauge pod. I also repainted the gauge pod white.

Here is what I saved from an earlier thread:

The tinted diffusers are there for 2 reasons. They spread the light evenly to prevent bright spots and glares just like the lamp shades in your home.
Then the prevent a loose bulb from falling down inside the panel.
While there are 10 or more bulbs in the average panel , less than half are for illumination. All others are for indicaters.
If I pull a panel for any reason I'll replace every bulb while its out.
I solder a jumper on the headlight switch to bypass the dimmer reostat too which sends maximum power to those few illumination bulbs.

It's likely the bulbs have blackened with age. You can get brighter bulbs (use Sylvania #2825 if you want to keep the white or bluish-white illumination, or #2827 if you want amber or green illumination; you pick white/bluish or amber/green by keeping or deleting the blue plastic balloons surrounding the bulbs in most instrument clusters). Also keep in mind the instrument light rheostat built into the headlamp switch will tend to corrode and build up resistance over the years, which will dim the dash lights.

The "LED bulbs" aren't dangerous to use inside the car like they are outside in the car's safety lights (brake, turn, marker, etc.), but they also don't work very well because filament bulbs send their light out evenly in all directions, while LEDs emit a very one-directional beam so you wind up with bright and dark areas in the dash.