I have searched and read.....

[Eagalicious]

I have searched and read a lot of threads till my eyes hurt. My question is this:
I want brighter lights in my dash. The knob that you turn to increase or decrease brightness, doesn't make it bright enough for me. I took apart my cluster and found that there are x2 3 watt bulbs (grey twistlocks) and the rest are black. I was wondering if I dremmeled out the black sockets a little bit to make the grey sockets fit with the brighter 3 watt bulbs would it work or not? Would I hurt or burn anything?
I want to make all of my lights in the car brighter. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I don't want LED's because I don't want to do all the soldering resistors and stuff and make the circuit board look like a "Borg baby"
I was also thinking of either spray painting the back (inside) of the cluster with chrome paint or lining it with a reflective material like they do flashlights.

Thanks in advance guys and gals.

John
1997 Tsi AWD

 

[98gsspy]

Well, have you tired replacing the bulbs they might be getting dim. I was a little confused when you said the bulbs were grey and black I think it is juts a miss understanding. But I had to replace my bulbs when they got dim. It also might look dim because one of the bulbs is out.

 

[Galaxy]

Unless you rip all the lighting and gauges out and put a flourescent white tube in there...nothings gonna be that noticeable.Are your eyes really bad that you can't see them when its dark?

You don't wanna mess with soldering resistors but you wanna hack the circuit board up with a Dremel?

About the only thing I can suggest is buy new replacement bulbs,if that doesn't brighten it up you can sand the coating off the backs of the gauge faces but that only works for the gauges.The rest of your lights will still be dull orange.

Only other thing us run more voltage to the whole lighting circuit...and I really wouldn't do that.

You could make sure there are no little bulb covers on the bulbs themselves.

 

[Eagalicious]

I was a little confused when you said the bulbs were grey and black I think it is juts a miss understanding.

There are 2 types of bulbs in the cluster. 2 are gray twistlocks which are 3 watt bulbs. The rest have black twistlocks which are 1.4 or 5 watt bulbs. Just want to know if I can put a 2 watt or 3 watt in the ones that are 1.4 watt.

Are your eyes really bad that you can't see them when its dark?

No they are not. I can see fine. I just want the lights a little brighter.

John

 

[erebusknight]

engineers design the circuits to be rated for a certain amperage/voltage/wattage. If they can shrink the wire down to save space and a little money and still have a good effect then they did their job. Anything using more juice will need sometimes beefier wires (hence a lot of headlight mods).
I would personally see if that wiring can handle a little higher output before I throw higher loads in