What dash lights

[Southernboy]

So, in the first couple of pics what you see is the holder with the side wall having been a little melted away with my soldering iron to expose the one contact which comes from the loom connection end. To that I soldered some thin copper wire, and punched a small hole to the interior tube section - I repeated the sam on the other side. The next pic shows the tube section into which the bulb fits. You can see the copper wire on opposite sides for the two bulb wires to connect to when fitted. The stand alone bulb fits into the hole perfectly - as if it was always intended to fit in there ie. same profile shape. You may have to re-position the bulb wires to make contact with the copper wires a little. If you can make it out in the last pic, you will see I have moved the bulb wires around the edge of the bulb stem to coincide with the position of the copper wires I soldered into the holder... I stuck the bulb into some prestik so it would stand up, so don't be confused...

 

[Southernboy]

Fully assembled with conversion.... If I recall, you can actually see the contacts which come from the loom end through two minute little windows on the side of the holder. That will help you get to the soldering points. Yu need to solder from the ouside like I did, then drill a small 1.5 mm hole through to the tube section and thread the copper wires through to the inside of the tube.... no need to have the copper wires to correct length until threaded. You can trim them once you have them in position, or even double them over and back inside to provide a larger contact area on each side.

 

[Southernboy]

Bear in mind, the copper wires aren't as thick as the pics suggest, consider the size of the tube - aprox 4 or 5mm diameter...

 

[Sean d]

Took one of the heater bulbs in to work this morning just to have a look and it took five mins to mod and add the bulb that cost 50p, all I did was break the bulb and remove all the glass that remained, this left the 5 filament wires protruding about 8mm from the top of the holder, I bent them inside and placed them in the sides of the profile, pushed in the new bulb, tested and it worked,

 

[Southernboy]

There you go... another way of getting the job done... excellent result !!

 

[Sean d]

There you go... another way of getting the job done... excellent result !!

Did 2 more today, got home popped them in and neither work , must have got lucky with the first one.

 

[Southernboy]

Check the contacts have a circuit using a multi-meter... possibly there may have been a break or burn out in the filament from the connection end to the bulb.

 

[Sean d]

Check the contacts have a circuit using a multi-meter... possibly there may have been a break or burn out in the filament from the connection end to the bulb.

I got the muti meter out to test them only to find that I need a new 9v battery,

 

[Southernboy]

Hahahaha.... I love it....

 

[Sea Ranch]

Just found these after doing some research on .net, apparently the bulb will pull out of the holder and can be replaced with an Osram 2721, £5.88 for ten

Thanks for this tip, Sean! My car's ash tray light bulb was firmly stuck in the holder, but after reading the above, I pulled harder

It does come out and it is indeed a T5 glass base type bulb.

One tip I add: the bulb's exposed/external conductor wires must be (carefully) bent straight so they line up with the glass and come straight out the bottom (not folded back up the glass base as in the stock use of this bulb type). They will act as two prongs which plug into the bulb holder base. Look carefully and you can see the wires through two holes in the side of the holder as they slide into place. My bulbs do not stay in place very well. Had to mess with the angle of the conductor wires to get them to make reliable contact. Even then, if I were putting this back into a low-access/hard-to-access spot, I would glue the bulb glass in place (once I was sure there was good electrical contact).

That's how it worked for me, YMMV, et cetera. Better than bulb-holder combos at US$15+ each.

Randy