'89 900 16 Valve : Speedo-Cluster Lights Too Dim?

[TheSaabNinja]

Me too, about 6 years for me. I did not like the green bulbs, too much. My circuit board crapped out, so I wired the lights to the headlight switch bulb. Much brighter and more consistent than incandescents.

I do agree with you there lol.

I did find out that the dash rheostat was stuck, and i managed to FINALLY turn up the dash cluster just a bit.

Still swapping for White LEDS, though.

[drwatson32]

Ok, my argument about white leds is that you're buying an led that creates all the colors in the spectrum, only to force it through a green filter, so you're losing light. I highly recommend sticking with green leds, as the final result looks closer to stock, just sufficiently bright. Also, you will find that even though the Superbrightleds.com lights have circuitry that allows them to dim with a rheostat, the stock one in our Saabs doesn't have enough of a range to make much of a difference.

[900Aero]

Ok, my argument about white leds is that you're buying an led that creates all the colors in the spectrum, only to force it through a green filter, so you're losing light. I highly recommend sticking with green leds, as the final result looks closer to stock, just sufficiently bright. Also, you will find that even though the Superbrightleds.com lights have circuitry that allows them to dim with a rheostat, the stock one in our Saabs doesn't have enough of a range to make much of a difference.

Yours looks just like mine, now I'm wondering if I have green bulbs. Now you just need to get a green filter for your gauges. Old stereo filters/bulb covers or even high temp paint will work.

[Burnsside42]

Looks good! This could be a mod for my 86 9000 someday down the road. I agree - your aftermarket gauge needs a green filter/led now.

As for the dimming - you can always source an aftermarket dimmer/potentiometer switch to make them dim.

[drwatson32]

haha I hear ya about the accessory gauge, after setting base boost, I moved the gauge down to the cubby hole and pretty much forgot about it.

[Badwolf]

How hard is this mod to do? I think my dash lamps are a bit dim, but I thought it was the way it was designed. Dash lamps have been getting brighter for the past decade or so, so I chalked it up to vintage. If it's a real ball-breaker, I'll probably just leave them stock. I have bigger fish to fry at this point anyway.

[rpiereck]

It's a very easy and straight forward thing to do. I recently replaced my dash lamps with the correct bulbs. Eventually I'll get LEDs, but getting to the bulbs is very easy. Remove your left side speaker grill, and you can access both bulbs from there, they lie on the upermost part of the instrument cluster. I have seen an image of it somewhere on the web. I'll look for it and post it here for you to see.

Edit: I can't find the picture of the rear (I think it's on the Bentley manual you just bought), but here is a picture of the front.



You can see on the upper part there are the two light ports where the bulbs reside. Although the shines forward the bulbs come in through the front, so I imagine there is some kind of reflective material in there to turn the light around (metail foil, mirror?). I imagine that over time that reflective surface gets dirty and reflects less light too. I don't know if anyone ever tried cleaning the reflective surface. If you look at the backside of the cluster, directly behind those light ports there are two plastic bulb holders, on my car they were green. You grasp the end of the holder with your fingers, twist it 90 degrees and pull it out (toward the front of the car). The first time I pulled mine out they were hard to remove and I took my time to make sure I didn't break anything. There is a thin film with electrical contacts behind the bulb holders, so be careful with those. It's actually easier to do then it seems.

[peva]

This is what the rear of the instrument cluster looks like, minus the boost gauge etc. You can see the two dash light positions, one fitted and the other with loose track. The light is actually not controlled by a reflective surface but by a plastic refractive lens that fits around the light source and directs the light downwards internally. You can see this in the second pic. Very clever, very Saab, but still often too dim. I have considered taking one of these light assembles apart to get an even better look, with a view for improvement, but haven't got around to it. If I do I'll post pics.

There, I've done it and taken it apart. In the third pic you can see the internals. The light travels to the LHS of the fitting and is the directed down through the dash aperture by the white plastic wall sticking up. The fourth pic show the plastic lens and as far as I can make out the green filter is only on the outside of the lens.

[rpiereck]

Good stuff on the refractive surface, I imagine it will also need some cleaning after a few years. There is still a bit of reflective metal tape there. Nothing a cotton swab won't take care off; I imagine a light coat of film residue will sit on it after so many years since it left the factory.

[peva]

Good stuff on the refractive surface, I imagine it will also need some cleaning after a few years. There is still a bit of reflective metal tape there. Nothing a cotton swab won't take care off; I imagine a light coat of film residue will sit on it after so many years since it left the factory.

Looking at it when it's apart I actually can't see that reflective tape doing much. It reflects light back onto the bulb. Might be to help keep heat out off the lower plastic moulding. Can't see it helping the light output though.