The 'E' Type Forum

Hi guys . This evening I drove my series 3 in the dark for the first time . The dashboard lighting seems non existent. The switches light up ok but the rest of the meters Speedo and tachometer completely nothing . Also my smiths clock needs re setting . How easy is it to tackle this . I have already tried to drop down the clock and instrument panel ,by undoing the thumb screws. However it won’t budge and I don’t want to damage anything . Thanks in advance

If you are handy with a soldering iron, then you can replace each bulb with a green LED with the appropriate resistor. For the two big gauges, you need four high brightness LEDs per bulb holder.

I have my panel lights wired to come on when the other lights are on. (A separate "dim" setting isn't appropriate with LEDs.)

The instrument panel should pivot down along its lower edge once the two thumbscrews are released. There is nothing else holding it.

kind regards
Marek

The drop down panel is frequently prevented from folding down by the front part of the centre console being mispositioned. If this is the case then you will probably need to remove it - not all that difficult - ot at the least slacken the two acorn nuts at the sides and push it down and retighten the nuts . If you have no lights at all on certain instruments, then it is likely that you have no , or defective, earth leads to the various panels and /or the instruments themselves . The large instruments are earthed by black wires attached to the knurled holding in knobs at the back of the instruments

Try this when it is available.

https://forums.jag-lovers.com/t/smart-g ... 385061/367

Hi . Thank you Marek and Chris for your advice ,much appreciated.Paul

The drop down panel, if its not caught up on something obvious its just stiff.
All brown and purple wires will be live (directly connected to battery). Others will be live depending on ign switch and panel switches.

You will be able to see the back of the "Panel Dim Bright" switch. The wires connected to this, in cw order, are:
Red = power in.
Red/white = full power to the gauges (= bright) when switch is on
Red/brown = reduced power to the gauges (= dim) when switch is off
Red/blue = full power to the switch panel lights, i.e. these are never dimmed.

If there is no gauge lights when the switch is off it means that the dimmer resistor is blown (not unusual, mine is).
If there is no gauge lights when the switch is on, could be the red/white wire is not connected.
One check, swap the red/white and red/brown wires on the back of the switch, does it make any difference, with the switch on or off?