Transmission Gear Selector Quadrant Light

[Classics Fan]

I recently replaced my incandescent dash bulbs with LED’s while I had the dash panel on the bench chasing bad grounds. The panel is now brightly lit but a couple problems remain. 1) the bright-headlights indicator glows almost imperceptibly when brights are on (it worked properly before), and 2) the gear selector quadrant on the column is dark (it was dark before I pulled the panel as well). For the second problem I’ve confirmed the bulb is working and the fiber optic is in place next to it. This is a 1971 GMC Custom with full instrumentation (a Jimmy but this forum seems a lot more active than the Blazer/Jimmy forum).

I can live with these issues if need be but wondering if anyone has ideas or suggestions on what is going on with either one.

[Rich69shortfleet]

A lot depends on the LEDs you used. For the high beam indicator, if you didn't use a bulb that fires light straight out the top, it won't illuminate the indicator. For the bulb lighting the gear selector indicator you either need really powerful LEDs that fire in all directions or replace that one bulb with an incandescent. LED light does not reflect well as LEDs are very directional, they don't really fire light in all directions at once like an incandescent.

[Classics Fan]

Originally Posted by Rich69shortfleet

A lot depends on the LEDs you used. For the high beam indicator, if you didn't use a bulb that fires light straight out the top, it won't illuminate the indicator. For the bulb lighting the gear selector indicator you either need really powerful LEDs that fire in all directions or replace that one bulb with an incandescent. LED light does not reflect well as LEDs are very directional, they don't really fire light in all directions at once like an incandescent.

Makes sense. I don’t want to pull the panel again but I can reach the bulb for the quadrant without doing so. I’ll replace that one with incandescent and see what happens. Thanks for your insight.