I have had my 86 XJ6 for over 20 years and very rarely drive it at night but when I do I find that the dash lights are dim even with the control turned up to the max. It has always been like this so I figured that is part of the Lucas electrical system. Is there a way to make them brighter?
Bill

 

Dim panel lights was British tradition for years. The Ser III Jag, being the most modern of all antique automobiles, suffers.

You can try cleaning the rheostat contacts and wiper wires as quite a voltage drop can occur there. Or, bypass the rheostat entirely. I've found doing so gives a "just right" level of brightness.

Many guys have found brighter replacement bulbs which is fine but it takes a bit of research and experimenting....complicated by the fact that there are two or three different bulbs types used in the instruments. The key is getting brighter bulbs without having some guages brighter than others, which looks sorta goofy.

There are some on-line vendors selling LED replacment bulbs for instrument/panle lights but my experience is that they are *too* bright. Opinons vary on that.

The small controls: headlight and ignition switches, climate control switches, etc are illuminated by fibre optic cables with the source being a single bulb in the console. Some have found brighter bulbs for this as well...but too many watts will melt the fixture. An LED might work well here.

Others will chime in more. This subject has been discussed hundreds of times on various Jag discussion groups.


Cheers
DD

 

Thanks for the information. The car is in storage until early May so between now and then I will look at all the suggestions and then decide what I will do. as I stated I very rarely drive the car at night.
Thanks

Bill

 

Does anyone have experience with the LED light installation and results? I have to take off the dash and install new wood trim and would like to upgrade the lights on the gauges.

 

Not on a Ser III but I've experimented with LED replacements on others....and found them too bright. But there are lots of different LEDs out there. I wasn't interested enough in the project to reseach and experiment to any great extent.

Somebody (maybe on Ebay...can't remember) is selling an all-in-one LED kit that has everything you need....hopefully they've scienced things out so the result isn't too bright

Cheers
DD