by Paul Almjeld in the August 2002 RootesReview:
You Light up My Life! Remember that song of a few years back? It’s what came to mind during a trip to the local Radio Shack store.
A quick and easy way to improve the night visibility of the Alpine and Tiger dash gauges is to substitute the original bulbs with some that slightly more output. Radio Shack has available a screw base lamp rated at 14.4 volts, 200mA that is an easy replacement for those dim original bulbs.
The Radio Shack #1487 lamps come packaged in pairs and can be found hanging in the bulb display area of your RS store. They carry a 1.4MSCP brightness label and are rated at an average of 30 hours. They provide improved illumination without so much brightness as to be annoying.
I have replaced all the original bulbs in my Series V. For evening or night driving they are a significant improvement over the originals.
Ed note: Several of us used this tip a few years ago, when Radio Shack was still in business and LED gauge lights weren’t yet available!