Since I'm more nerd than gearhead, I decided to do what I do best and added a few more semiconductors into my 78'.

These are 1W blue LED's. I took all the gauges apart, stripped the rust off of the small ones (the evaporator coil must have had an air leak, only the tops of the gauges were rusted), painted them, buffed the plexi with some blue compound, and added the LED's in place of the original bulbs. Much less heat, much nicer looking. They even dim with the divider pot.

The Temp gauge is dimmer just because of the layout of the PCB inside. All three little gauges are in series with a 12ohm, removable resistor so they're all the same brightness. The Tach has 2 LED's and a 26.1 ohm, 5Watt resistor with integrated heat sink mounted to the metal case. It dissipates a lot of heat!

 

I've got blue leds in my 83 makes it look 100% better and fun to drive at night!!
Dose the blue compound make the leds brighter of give better color?

 

Haha I didn't use the compound on the LED's themselves, but on the plexiglass lens you see the gauges through to buff out the scratches. I'm sure the plexi on the LED's from the factory is smoother than I could ever get it.

 

Lmao!! I didn't mean the leds themselves. That'd be um but the Plexiglas just curios urs seem brighter then mine course Idk what kind they are the p.o put them in.

 

They are pretty brilliant. The lens from my daily driver isn't as clear as my z since i buffed them. I also used some Novus plexiglass polish, which provided an even better finish after everything was done.