Good point MrT, I think that was because all the earthing points started rusting as soon as they went out in the rain!

When the instruments first arrived they were all very dim, the same as the current oilio gauge, they were so dim I couldn't read them at night. They were sent back because of this and they have had additional bulbs fitted, they are now all much better and can be read at night except for the dim one pictured above. I am hoping that they can fit an extra bulb in just below the oil pressure light. It is just a small but annoying point, as soon as the lights are turned on you eye goes to the dim instrument.
The only other thing I can think of is fitting a proper pressure gauge in the instrument which would leave enough room for the illumination but this would have to be wired up separately which sort of defeats the plug n play feature.

I don't quite understand why the illumination is such a problem. The old Smiths gauges were fitted with a single lamp and they were always brightly lit.
What car are you building Steve, another 250 SWB ?

The gauges aren't standard so they can be plug n play. Casamolino did the same thing a few years ago by cannibalising some old Veglia gauges and fitting the BMW internals in them but never had a working odometer.

The new Grassbank ones use the existing BMW motors in new custom pods. The oil temp and pressure gauge are actulay volt meters pretending to be oil temp and pressure gauges. There is a lot more inside them which is causing the illumination problems. The first set were simply too dark to see, they are all now much better except for the oil pressure gauge which looks as if the bulb has blown. It is so obvious when sat in line with the other instruments. I know Justin has put a lot of work into them but for the money I expect them to work and look good too.

The car I am currently working on is a 250 California but modified to be bolt on rather than glue on. Once I have got the instrumentation and interior sorted I will be fitting another in the Tribute 250 but don't want to have it off the road for long as I enjoy driving it.

Have you thought of trying fibre optics ? Easy to thread through into tight places and use with a remote light source.

Thanks for the interesting thread jag. Looks like you have been beta testing these lights and are getting there. They look look like a great idea and hope the product meets its goals eventually. What we all need is an ‘easy’ dash change for the rebodies. I’d like one in the Kobra but know it’s money I would never recoup at resale. (Not that I built mine for that reason)

Onward and upwards in the meantime.

I think Chris's Z3gt dash would look good in a Kobra. One of the reasons these instruments are so expensive is the style, they need printing on the glass and separate sections inside. Kobra clocks would be so much easier to make, as Grassbank has already done the hard work on the 250 dials the cost of producing the Kobra dials would be far less. A few 3d printed cups, glass and dials along with the same loom.
Or you could use the ETB instruments which will now be much easier to fit as we have the full (and idiot-proof) wiring diagrams. This would probably be the cheaper option and would give you working oil pressure/temperature and volt gauges.
It would be nice to see full interior done on a Kobra, I don't think one has been done yet.

Cheers S,

I think maybe a spring summer project to finally have a go at Kobra dash. I’d like it to be a bit like the originals which are quite flat. That should help me for space. One day ...

Good luck with that. The first thing I look for in a Cobra replica is the 3-2-1 layout on the centre dash area.

Most Cobra replica's don't feature an original layout for some reason. Most people want a plush interior with a deeply padded dash, the bottom of which extending down to the top of the tunnel. The original Cobra was very crude with a flat dash panel with no padding, a few instruments and a couple of switches !

https://www.classicandsportscar.com/...?itok=-LiwXeoh

With my skills I should be able to get mine to look as ‘rustic’ as that !

Instrument update
 

Well it's been over 6 months since I ordered my instruments, I knew that they were one of the first sets so would have some teething problems but I think 6 months is enough. The repaired instruments have just been returned. Just to refresh your memory
https://i.postimg.cc/mk8SCgJn/illumination.jpg

On one instrument the "Olio" script wasn't illuminated, this has now been fixed.

The illumination on the next OLIO gauge has also been fixed and looks much better,

The Aqua gauge was returned as it was only illuminated on one side, this has unfortunately been returned untouched and looks half dead at night, I presume this is because it is fitted with the red hi temp light where there should be an illumination bulb.
I would much prefer the illumination to be correct and lose the red light.

The clock was returned because the casing was smashed. So far 3 of the small instrument casings have been received broken, this is before they have even been fitted, I hope that this is not going to be an ongoing problem. The problem now is the clocks illumination is now much dimmer than it was before.

The extra bulbs and holders that have been fitted tend to flicker if touched, I took the car around the block in the dark and noticed some flickering when going over bumps, this seems to be only on the extra bulbs that have been retro fitted.

So I'm afraid to say that my other car will be fitted with ETB instruments especially as a full easy to follow wiring diagram is now available.

The Grassbanks instruments are the better looking set and I especially like the fact that they do not have the LCD panel in the speedo. They need more work and refining, especially when considering the cost, my last set of ETB were