69 Dart instrument cluster bulbs

[Sublime69]

I am going to be changing out my instrument cluster bulbs to LED's. Can anyone tell me what type of bulbs come in there and how many are in the whole cluster? The car is currently in storage other wise I would just pull the cluster and look for myself.

Thanks!

 

[BillGrissom]

There are listed in the back of the Owners Manual. I replaced all mine w/ LED's (cheap on ebay), which should last forever but don't count on China. Especially good for the larger twist-in ones since incandescents tend to melt the plastic over time.

 

[moparmat2000]

I used 5630 flexible LED light light strip i got off ebay for a more uniform lighting solution. Every 3 segments is a cut line where you can solder positive and negative wires to it. Not sure which color your looking for. I picked green. I tried the LED push in bulbs but my barracuda cluster has only 4 of these leaving bright and dim spots all over the place. I soldered the leads to a bulb socket and plugged it into the circuit board to light em up.

 

[moparmat2000]

Heres pix. Keep in mind these leds are at full bright 12v on the workbench, and the trim is not fully bolted on, and is just set in place.. I had a 68 fastback 25 years ago with bulbs and the backlighting was horrible. I did everything to try to get the lights bright enough to see the gages back then.

The LED strip lighting comes in many vibrant colors, and also in tricolor LED with a controller so you can color change your dash lighting to suit your mood if you wanted to. Me i prefer the green.

Notice my ammeter in the top pic. I modded it to volts but kept the ammeter face.

I hope this helps

 

[67Dart273]

Thanks for posting those photos!!

 

[RogerRamRod]

I have been thinking about going to LED as well, and I like the idea of the strip light, especially now. Thanks for the pictures.

 

[moparmat2000]

Thanks for posting those photos!!

No problem. Lots of ways to do all this, but with bulbs, you still have bright n dim spots. I prefer everything to be more uniform in brightness.

 

[moparmat2000]

I have been thinking about going to LED as well, and I like the idea of the strip light, especially now. Thanks for the pictures.

Plus its cheap. I mean really cheap. Like $5-$7 for a 5 meter roll cheap, and super efficient. I alligator clipped a 9V battery to the full 15 ft roll and they stayed lit for days.

 

[slantsixdan]

If you want to keep the stock bulb holders and not install LED rope, now there are finally(!) some(!) legitimate and good-quality LED retrofits: these (2-pack) and these (1-pack).

Take note, LED means Light Emitting Diode. A diode passes current in only one direction, not both like a filament. So it matters which way round the bulb is installed in the socket (or the socket in the circuit board. If the LED is installed backwards, it won't light when it should. If there are other LEDs in the system (as there are in the dashboard) then just one backwards LED can create weird new paths for electric current that shouldn't be there, causing a no-light or no-light-when-supposed-to or light-when-not-supposed-to situation.

So, fashion a jumper to ground the cluster properly (when installed in the dashboard it grounds via dashboard metal). Install one LED bulb/socket assembly. Try it out to see if it works correctly. If it doesn't, remove it, turn the bulb or the socket (not both!) 180°, and reinstall it so it works. Then move on to the next one: install one more LED bulb/socket assembly and try it out. Proceed this way until all the bulbs are installed and working.