STUART_BRENNAN@HP-Andover-om3.om.hp.com wrote:
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> Item Subject: cc:Mail Text
>
>
> Blue is a recurring theme inside British Gages. I grabbed a voltmeter
> out of a TR to stick into the Tiger clock hole. It looked sort of
> right, but I wanted to clean it up and paint the pointer to match the
> others, so apart it came. I found a blue dome over the bulb, which I
> took to be some silly Triumph thing, and removed it. About a year
> later, when I finally sorted out all my dash lights, I discovered that
> the voltmeter light looks much more yellow-orange than the others.
> They all must add blue, to make the light look a bit whiter. Now, I
> saw that blue filter floating around the bottom of one of my spares
> boxes a couple months before, but it found a good place to hide when
> I finally wanted it....
>
> Another interesting question: The Lucas +/-30Amp I have is not
> illuminated, and does not accept the standard type of "bulb in the
> back" type of setup. There are slots around the circumference of the
> body that appear to be there to admit light from some sort of external
> source. Is this the "right" gage? How do people illuminate these
> things?
>
> Stu
>
Stu:
What you've got is probably wrong for the Tiger. Back in the 20's &
30'sdash instruments...no matter how many..were illuminated by only 1 or
2 bulbs (a '29 Marmon I helped restore lighted 5 guages with 2 bulbs!)
placed in brackets behind the dash and positioned to shine through slits
in the perimeter of the guages. In the 40's,50's & 60's they put the
bulbs in a "plenum" that covered the backs of the instruments so your
feet wouldn't light up when the instruments did. By the time the Tiger
came along,just about everybody put individual bulbs in each
instrument.The fact that the ammeter is the only one this way means its
probably an old guage that got used because it was handy and looked
OK.The ammeter in my Tiger (an LAT option installed when I bought it)has
the bulb in the back. If you want to modify the guage you have,let me
know.I think I can dredge my memory deep enough to remember how we used
to up-date the old instruments. By the way,that Marmon used blue-tinted
celluloid in the slits to make the light whiter,too. Pretty neat for
1929!
Paul B.
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