Improving the green brightness on the night time dashboard

Any ideas how to increase the brightness on the display. Can you get brighter blubs?

Cheers

I seem to remember someone posted about this before xmas and said that you could put 2W bulbs in from a later clipper/cabrio model.

There was a part number as well.

Obviously this is no help, have a look in electrical section.

Soz

Early Golf's had a 1.2w bulb , dim . Simply replace with the 2w type available from all good suppliers [halfords etc] hey presto .80w brighter . From memory there was 6 in all ? I did mine about a year ago . Much better after dark !!


Chudd…

Cheers chudd, Is it possible to increase the brightness even further by resoldering a bulb in from a modern car?

lhasa
        i just replaced like for like the bulbs are in a little case simply twist and it pops out . I would'nt solder any thing on the instrument panel board in case it goes faulty . The bulbs were from memory about .80p each , next time i will blag a few from the scrappy !!

Chudd……

Chudd I'm going to order 10 number 2w dashboard bulbs from VW tomorrow, I will try and use the surplus bulbs for the VDO and the heater illumination.

What shocked me was that the dash board bulb from GSF was 2 pounds each and the O/E bulb from VW was 93p each!

On order from VW

You would be suprised that vw are sometimes cheaper on the smaller stuff than ecp and gsf, they where cheaper than halfords when i needed a new alternator

Thats an interesting comment storm, guess I will get the small bits from VW and the bigger parts from GSF.

Just wondered if VW would give me a complete price list for all the MK1 bits that are available?

Doubtful on the price list, have been gradualy composing my own, excel doc with vw part number, decription, price etc

I checked out Halfords last night for these bulbs. The only correct types they had were the 1.2W and 2.3W. Is 2.3W ok or too powerful???

Damn expensive tho in there - about ?1.69 each! Perhaps I'll try VW but appreciate any advice on the max wattage. :wink:

....any takers???? I want to try and get them today if I can!!

I?ve never had any problems with too dim dashes.

I reckon its bad contacts and duff rheostats in the headlight switch? You should be able to clean up the ?wiper? in the switch to reduce the resistance and therefore increase the brightness of the bulbs?
 :dontknow:

Good point!!

Still like to know if the car can handle 2.3W bulbs tho :?

OK, problemo solved!!

Spoke to VW, and as follows

Pt no: 431 919 040 - Bulb with black base - 1.2W
Pt no: 431 919 040A - Bulb with white base - 2W

Think they were the 0.93p already mentioned! Only has two left though!!

Should be bright lights by tomorrow lunch time!!

ahhh now I seem to remember that mine had some of each? So perhaps mine is atleast partly 2w anyway??? I'll have to track down the paperwork and see what I bought when I replaced them.

I know one of my old clock sets has a white one and two blue ones (god knows what rating these are!!) At least I should then have the 3rd one if I need it!

Back in Sept 2001 I bought; (I replaced like for like)

 2 x 431 919 040A (?2.70+VAT each) they?re the 2w so thats why I think mines already bright enough.
 
1 x 431 919 040 (?2.80+VAT) 1.2w

From memory the two 2w are for the instruments and the other ones for the MFA?.

There?s also listed bulb N0177512 (0.35+VAT) and bulbholder 171 919 244A (?2.05+VAT) but I?cant remember what these were for??? :dontknow:

Hint: for all the restorers out there, replace ALL the bulbs whilst you have the dash in bits, its heart breaking finding out a 20 yr old bulbs doesn?t work when you have put it all back together again.

Well, job done and a little birghter now! (Still couldn't get the MFA working tho :cry: )

Bloody hell!! Drove the Golf to work today for first time this week - the MFA has started working again! I had changed the circuit board on the back of the speedo on the weekend and guess this must have (slowly) done the trick?

The MPG still reads 99.9 but maybe this will wokr in a day or two?

YEAH BABY!! :cheer: