Click click click went the signal flashers........:-) 1986 Tudor MGM

[sly]

On my 88, you can barely get two fingers around the cluster until the speedo cable comes off. Mine is a bit of a bitch in that area. YMMV.

[DerekTheGreat]

Oh wait, you guys have Mercurys... Yeah, whole different cluster...

[Toploader]

Derek, after giving careful consideration to the situation at hand.....I have decided to wait......my reasons....first, the flashers work on the outside of the car no problems.....if the second dash 194 bulb goes out then I will have to do it....second reason.....the car sits on a busy street in NYC.....traffic up the ass......no way I can just tear into things with buzzing cars...
no house with driveway...just street parking outside my apartment.

Oh wait, you guys have Mercurys... Yeah, whole different cluster...

[His Royal Ghostliness]

The trick with the speedometer cable is to pop it out of the transmission first, than you kinda feed it back in the body. Obviously requires crawling under the car.

[DerekTheGreat]

You could always just find a parking lot somewhere. I suck mechanically and was able to do it within a few hours or less. If you're worried about the other bulbs like I was just replace all of those lights while you're there. Yeah, get yourself set up at a parts store and get it apart, then you'll see how many 194 bulbs you'll need. Probably six or eight depending on how many there are for illumination.

[gadget73]

Its not that hard, its just a cuss-worthy job. Take paper towels and clean water. You're going to bleed at some point.

[knucklehead0202]

What's the best 194 LED bulb to get? There's all kinds on ebay, wish, etc. but i'm scared of all this chinaman shit. Going to put the cop cluster in the '90 soon, finally got the new gears in it and fixed the odometer reading to what it should be in the car, but I figure it'd be a good idea to replace the 50 bulbs in it before putting it in.

[sly]

Sylvania LL (Long life) If you ever have to replace that bulb again, I'd be surprised.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Yo sly, he asked about LEDs, not regular bulbs. Tho I do agree with you, the LLs do tend to live like forever, even in some applications that are known to eat bulbs regularly (#1141 RV lamps for example) ... Btw has anyone ever noticed how freakin hot the main lights switch gets if you run the dash illumination turned like halfway down for a while? I know it's designed to do that, but still it can be a bit unnerving...

[DerekTheGreat]

That is unnerving. Resistance = heat yo. Guess that's why people like to do the relay mod or no? I always run my dash lights at full illumination unless I'm on long road trips. When we went to Florida I didn't change it because the knobs on my car feel factory fresh, nice & tight. My '85 LTD's switch was worn out so I always played with the dimmer.

[sly]

Yo sly, he asked about LEDs, not regular bulbs. Tho I do agree with you, the LLs do tend to live like forever, even in some applications that are known to eat bulbs regularly (#1141 RV lamps for example) ... Btw has anyone ever noticed how freakin hot the main lights switch gets if you run the dash illumination turned like halfway down for a while? I know it's designed to do that, but still it can be a bit unnerving...

Which was my point. No need for LEDs in those locations. That said... Superbrightleds.com sells quality LEDs. Get the "warm white" as those actually work for any of the filters and will look right without getting green bulbs.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

That is unnerving. Resistance = heat yo. Guess that's why people like to do the relay mod or no?

The thing is supposed to get hot when you run the dash lights at low power, it's essentially a rheostat and yes the heat is a direct result of the increased resistance but that resistance is needed to drop the voltage so the bulbs dim. Heat is also a product of current tho, which is why I suspect that with full LED dash while the resistance is still there in the switch by design the current will be minimal and so heat generation should be small as well.

What you're thinking of with the relays is kinda the same general idea but not quite - head buildup there is not intentional and the switch is not designed to dissipate it from that part of its circuits, as a result of which the terminal for the headlights wire overheats and eventually melts. Pickup trucks of the same vintage use the same switch design and have the same issue, only not with just the headlights but running lights as well - those with factory-installed extra running lights (usually dually trucks, they get 12 more bulbs) have a factory relay to deal with the increased load and same relay also powers the trailer connector, but when people add the extra lights themselves the relay is usually skipped, and then when there's a trailer hanging out back that lights up like the
18-wheelers from the Coca-Cola X-mas commercials the poor lights switch has to handle all that as well, which it can't and so it commences meltdown.

So basically everything that has the potential of pulling big power should be relayed, those would be headlights on boxes, headlights and running lights on trucks, and back to boxes if you tow a trailer regularly a relay for the running lights is not a bad idea there either. The dash can be left alone with normal bulbs, yes the switch will get hot but again it's designed to do so, no issues there.

Sly, yes I figured that's what you meant, but wanted to clarify it. I've been tempted to go dash LEDs just to get rid of the self-heating nature of the main switch, but I'm a cheap basterd and LLs work so nah, she stays non-LED for the time being.

[DerekTheGreat]

Ah, thanks for the explanation.