Saturday, November 9, 2013

Seeing is believing

LED Dashboard Lights

After an evening drive the other night, we realized that being able to see the speedometer in the dark is useful.  The tiny LLB987 bulbs, which may be 40 years old, just don't put out much light.  Well there are LED equivalents available from www.v12s.com which are perfect.  Not only do they fit well, but they produce a nice white light, much brighter than the old bulbs.


See for yourself.  This photo shows the difference.  The left side bulb was changed to the new LED version, the right is still the old incandescent type.  The fuel gauge may be a bit too bright, but that will be good once it is connected to the battery monitoring system.

Tomorrow, new springs for the suspension which means pulling out the old rubber cone-type (sometimes call donuts) springs and installing heavy duty real steel springs.  This should vastly improve the ride.  Currently, it feels like a bicycle, where every crack, bump and pebble is felt, since the rubber cones are fully compressed and there is no travel available.   No telling how old the current rubber cones are but they are only expected to last 5-7 years and given the lack of compression available, they are well past their life expectancy.