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Posted By Discussion Topic: Question for "shoebox" owners     flatheadfan 05-05-2012 @ 1:01 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 450 Joined: Oct 2009 Need some help on this one... I have a '51 Vicky and the instrument cluster lights are so faint that it is virtually impossible to read them at night. I have tried changing light bulbs, new wiring and general cleaning all to no avail. All of the other items such as the clock and the heater control are very bright and dim normally with the turning of the light switch handle. Anyone else have this problem? Is it solvable or is this just the way it is? Thanks Tom flathead4rd 05-05-2012 @ 6:05 AM reply profile send p.m. New Member Posts: 169 Joined: Oct 2009 It's not the bulbs or the wiring, it's the colored lenses that are blocking the light. You can remove them but will probably have to paint your bulbs green or whatever color you like or they will be too bright. Each bulb has one of these lenses which look like a small piece of colored plastic. The speedo and gauges had a type of luminous paint that reacted with the color of the lense. Over time that paint has lost it luminous property's and the UV lens has deteriorated. You will have to remove the speed cluster to do this. nelsb01 05-05-2012 @ 7:33 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1011 Joined: Oct 2009 This wont answer your question, but I have carried a small mag lite flashlight with me so that I can see the key gauge readings at night. I know, it is distracted driving doing this, but it is better than not seeing what your vehicle is operating at. trjford8 05-05-2012 @ 7:51 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 4243 Joined: Oct 2009 this is a common problem with the 49-51 Fords.Shop around at your local swap meet and find a gauge panel you can experiment with before pulling your gauges. Try drilling a very small hole in the plastic light cover to see if that helps. Increase the size of the hole to increase the amount of light. jayd 05-12-2012 @ 11:32 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 26 Joined: Jan 2010 On my 50 I removed the "UV" glass lenses and then put in green colored 44G incandescent bulbs from CEC Industries (WWW.cecindustries.com). These are .9CP and work great. oldford2 05-12-2012 @ 3:59 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 275 Joined: Oct 2009 I don't know about 51's but our 46 has a small knob on the bottom of the dash which is the dash light dimmer. Do you have one? If so, maybe it is turned down low. John flatheadfan 05-12-2012 @ 5:33 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 450 Joined: Oct 2009 First- I would like to thank all those of offered their ideas. It gave me a lot to think about. What I ended up doing was pulling the '51 cluster to see what I had. There are no factory colored acetate lenses to filter the light. I was surprised about that. However, there were a couple of light blocking metal covers that limited light dispersal inside the speedometer casing. I removed them. Next I drilled two small holes near the center of the speedo dial to allow more light to come through the disk center (the holes are under the bronze center cover and can't be seen). I then painted everything inside the speedo housing that doesn't show, white to reflect exsisting light. I changed all bulb size from "51-1cp" to "55-2cp." This bulb size doubled the candle power without physically changing the basic size of the bulb. They fit the pre-drilled holes. I did check to see if the slight amount of extra heat that may come from the larger CP bulbs (only 3 of them and one is a remote), could cause a heating problem due to their proximity to the gauges. Ample clearances were still available so heat should not be a problem. Result- It turned out to be a lot more work than what I anticipated but there is definitely no problem reading the gauges at night now! Again, thanks for the help. Tom emilychung 07-10-2012 @ 2:59 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 8 Joined: Jun 2012 I've changed my light bulbs for several times recently.But there was still a problem that was similar to yours. This message was edited by emilychung on 7-10-12 @ 3:00 AM 42wagon 07-10-2012 @ 3:24 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 586 Joined: Oct 2009 One thing I discovered recently is that 6volt and 12 volt light bulbs look the same. You have to look closely at the small print on the bulb base to see which is which. A 12 volt bulb will work in a 6 volt socket but will give out only half the light. I discovered this when I mixed some 6 and 12 volt bulbs and then wondered why some lights were bright and others dim.

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