The 'E' Type Forum

Hello, I'm interested to know if or when the S1 cars changed colour of illumination from blue to green on tacho and speedo as suggested in the recent article in E type magazine. I presume the centre instruments were always illuminated with white light? My car was built October 62 but the illumination has never worked!

Hi David,

My September 62 FHC had blue lighting for the speedo and tacho. I also think that the centre gauges were also the same, but maybe wrong. During the refurb af all the guages I removed the blue filters as they were all melted or damaged.

The gauge illumination is pretty simple; a single series circuit linking all bulbs enabled by the panel switch which has a 12v supply fed from the main light switch when side lights are powered. Either a wire has come detached somewhere, or more probably, there is a problem with the panel illumination switch.

Hope this helps.

Simon

The instrument lighting is not a series circuit it is a parallel connected circuit with the positive connections daisy chained together (or negative connections if it's positive earth). The bulb holders are earthed to the instrument cases. If one bulb goes out, the rest will continue to function.

It is likely that David's car has lost a connection upstream of the instrument illumination bulbs if none of them are working.

Regards

Also worth checking the continuity via the main lighting switch. On my '64, the panel/instrument lights will not work unless the main light switch is turned to sidelights as a minimum.

The S1 cars up to about 1966 had blue instrument lighting, the later S1 cars had green, both provided by filters riveted to the rear of the instruments. The early switch indicator strip had a blue light filter whilst the later switch lighting strip had a green filter.

Heuer wrote:The S1 cars up to about 1966 had blue instrument lighting, the later S1 cars had green, both provided by filters riveted to the rear of the instruments. The early switch indicator strip had a blue light filter whilst the later switch lighting strip had a green filter.

Mine, DOM 21 Feb 67, has green lights.

Thanks for correcting me Stuart. Of course you are quite right, they are wired in parallel. I just remembered them being wired in the same circuit.

Cheers.