FINALLY finished redoing the electrical in the Dart. Charges like a champ, fuel gauge works, all the lighting finally works, and the stereo is nice and cleanly mounted in the factory radio's dash location. I feel so special now

One thing that irritates me is that the dome light is freakin DIM as I'll get out. Any little mods to brighten it up a bit? Maybe a different plastic cover that's not so opaque?

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'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

It'll be hard to get a bigger, brighter bulb in there because it is kind of cramped for space. I'm sure you can stuff a few ultra-bright LED's in there to make for a brighter lite. They are usually rated at about 2v each, so you can string 6 together in series, and have multiple sets of 6 in parallel if you want. Look for some that are at least 1000mcd, I've seen some as high as 2 or 3000mcd. You can find them at your electrical supply store... www.digikey.com, jameco.com, mouser.com etc. Also try ebay.

Or you can try to find some xenon flashlight bulbs and put a few of those together in series. I wouldn't use any sort of incadescent bulb though because the brighter they are the hotter they are, and they are relatively close to the plastic cover.

Yeah I thought of getting a direct replacement from www.ledtronics.com (these guys rule. they've got direct LED replacements for any automotive incandescents, and they're rated as the brightest you can get), but for 40 bucks a pop, I figured I'd explore my options first.

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'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

I usually just lurk around here, but I like playing with LED's. In theory they will last forever, so $40 for one bulb may not be that bad of an investment.

If you want to do it yourself, check out

http://www.rc-cam.com/led_info.htm

It is a page dedicated to putting LED's on an RC Airplane, but it has great information on how to figure out the resistors needed so you don't burn things up.

And the tight-wad approach, just leave the plastic cover off.
DD

But that's no challenge

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'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

perhaps there is some crap on the door switches causing a bad ground condition. compare the brightness "door to door." should give a clue.

-james

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I checked that out just for kicks, and no problems there. The bulb itself is nice and bright, but the cover is just so opaque that it blocks a good amount of light. I'll order an LED replacement once I have some of the more pressing matters taken care of (or rather, IF) and see how much of a difference that makes with the cover in place.

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'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me