Hi Lads.
After a couple of tries, and a lot of discussion with Gerhard, another option for LED dash lighting is below.
Due to the lack of mounting area behind all the gauges, I came across the following LED strips. The strip itself is about 50mm (2" in US speak!). With the connector attached, its about 15mm longer.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/261271669687 ... 1439.l2649
They are multi colour, just need to connect up the wire colour to get the LED to light up in that colour (red, blue or green). Only down side is they decided to make the 12 volt connection in black. Not really a problem, but does offend most wiring conventions. Easy enough to change if you have the inclination. Anyway, the strips come with 3M tape on the backs, so they stick to pretty much anything. The locations I put them (you need a total of 6 strips, or 2 sets) to light up the whole dash are in the next picture. This is the Tachometer side, but the other side is a mirror image.
- IMAG0283.jpg (76.37 KiB) Viewed 12260 times
I found the lower the mount of the strip gave a more even light dispersion, but trial and error may get a better setup?
To connect up the LED's, I joined, soldered and heat shrinked (heat shrunk?) all the connections behind the side gauges. I went for the Red LED's, as Red was the original colour, but what ever floats. This made a 6 wire connection into 2 (black and red), which I then fed out through a 3mm hole. There are a couple of holes that are in the dash that will do the job if you don't want to drill the 3mm holes, but they are a tight fit for the wires. In the wisdom of the Fun Police in the early 90's, in Australia the Headlight was hard wired to come on with the ignition. This makes connecting the LED's up to 12 volts easy, as both side gauges have 12 volt ignition going to both. The wires get fed through get a small crimp connector, and bolted to the Gauge 12 volts. See next picture:
- IMAG0284.jpg (77.3 KiB) Viewed 12260 times
When all 6 strips are connected up, the light dispersion is pretty good. Not so bright as to blind you at night. The only issue I found is the light dispersion behind the Speedometer is a little less than the rest. I think this is because there is a larger mechanism at the back of the Speedo, which doesn't allow as much light through. It does show up though, but a little adjustments of the strips on that side might elliminate it? Anyway, the Dash is now back in place on the 907. See this picture:
- IMAG0286.jpg (85.66 KiB) Viewed 12260 times
Its not the best picture of it, but best I could get. The lighting is a lot less bright than what is showing up in the picture. All the idiot lights are on too. These are all high intensity LED's, and show up in normal daylight, and don't blind you at night. I have removed the 2 globes from the dash that were originally there. Not much point leaving them in. I also removed the 2 plastic covers that were over the old globes. I was going to put them back in, but couldn't see any point.
All up to replace all the globes with LED's. About $18, and about 30 minutes of swearing. Is it better? Well, the old lighting was about as bright as a candle on the 3rd ring of Saturn, so Yes.
Not sure if connecting the LED's to the 12 volts that feeds the Gauges has anything to do with it, but the Fuel Gauge (Lean Indicator) doesn't move around as much. I'm tempted to fit a capacitor across the input to the fuel gauge to see if this damps out the movement too, but that's another job. For those wondering how much current the 6 LED strips take, its about 360mA. A single 5 watt globe (the original globes) takes about 450mA.
Things to watch out for:
The Plastic Dash cover is fragile, Be careful
The Black wire for 12 volts on the LED strips.
Other than that, all is good.
Cheers.
Nick.