LED Gauge Cluster

I kinda posed the question on another thread about changing the cluster on the 1100 to a fancy LED unit. Not sure how hard that might be, but I imagine that changing the bulbs to LED would be a lot easier. I did this in my truck and it looks pretty cool even though I have had to change the lights more often that I thought I would.

I am going to have to get back there to work on a very noisy speedometer cable. I think I have read that to get to the bulbs you risk tearing up the gauges???

Love to hear some thoughts on this.

You know, looking at this it really doesn't look to hard to change the bulbs. Now I'll have to figure out the size to get.

How to vid for changing the bulbs. viewtopic.php?p=74246#p74246
Some have posted which leds to use but I can't recall which just now.

Well that looks easier than I thought. Should be easier with the windshield off but we'll see. Did a search for the led sizes, nothing yet but I'll keep looking. Would help if the manual gave me the bulb sizes.

The bulbs in the 2 clusters I have. They are all NSN12V3.4v as stamped on the base.

OHHH These are for the tach and speedo. Not the gauges.

Or you could just resto-mod the gauges like i did. Speedo and Tach cluster are LED bulbs, upper set of gauges is all new. You can see them at the 53 second mark.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Y9DeKnmZ8[/video]

[url=https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=195692#p195692:31r8xnyt said:

gmartin » Today, 6:52 am[/url]":31r8xnyt]
Or you could just resto-mod the gauges like i did. Speedo and Tach cluster are LED bulbs, upper set of gauges is all new. You can see them at the 53 second mark.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Y9DeKnmZ8[/video]

Click to expand...

That's a nice look there Martin. Clean and easy to see.

83 uses a wedge-base...I THINK the 82 and earlier (can someone verify?) use a bayonet (push & turn) base. I used a tower-type (multiple LEDs) for my illumination bulbs. I tried them in the indicator lights and wasn't happy with them...you could see the two little chips on the top of the bulb. For those bulbs I'd use a single bulb LED with as narrow an angle as possible...or you could do what I did.... I took one of the old bulbs to the parts store and matched it up with a similar bulb that had higher output. The one thing that I did not do was to bend the top of the holder for the temp/fuel gauge so that none of the light is deflected. When you have the holder out you'll see what I mean....bend the tab straight up. Attached is a pic of the LEDs I used for illumination on my 83 Interstate...

I went with LEDs on my Valkyrie to cure the "disappear at dusk" syndrome. I tried to find the link, but there are gazillions of sources. Plug and play and the color was "cool blue" or something like that.

OK guys these are the bulbs that I pulled from the tach and the fuel/temp gauges. I suspect that the bulbs are the same on the speedo and the idiot lights look the same as well. They say Stanley 12v 3.4w and are the push and twist type.



Now I need to figure out what the replacement LEDs are. I'm going to call Superbrite and see what they say but appreciate your input.

Should be a number stamped on them. There is a direct led replacement bulb for most of the old style bulbs now.

I just talked to Superbrite and the replacement bulbs are BA9s LED Bulb - 5 SMD LED Tower - BA9s Retrofit. They are $3.95 each and I should get them tomorrow or Wednesday. The speedo and tach take three each and the fuel/ tem takes 1. Gonna go blue, I think, am considering red, and see how they look.



Sorry about all the posts for something I could have figured out myself. I just like to hear the sound of my posts.

I like seeing the correct items to use. So this thread will help me and others.
Thanks for posting.

Let us know which color you go with and how they work.

That's ok. I'll post up with a review. Will get them tomorrow cause I paid to get them quick so the bike won't be apart long while I'm waiting on shipping. Need cleaned up in there anyway. $38 job and it is very easy to do with the windshield off. Lots of little nuts. I found that only one of the original bulbs was actually clear. The rest are almost black so it's no wonder that I couldn't see the gauges. Took me about 20 minutes to do the removal. Thanks to Dan for his video.

I'm pretty sure you can get these cheaper on ebay but the guy at Superbrite told me exactly what I needed so I order from them. He was great.

One thing I'm not sure about is that I want to clean the plexi over the fuel/ temp gauges since there seems to be some gunk in there. I removed two screws that I would think holds the back of that to the pod. Here is a pic. The arrows point to the two screw holes.



I tried lightly to pull this off but I don't want to break it. Manual is no help.

And gmartin, where did you get that gauge cluster? Exactly what I'm looking for.

Wow nice bike ...