Topic: Instrument-panel-type bulbs -- what do numbers indicate?

[BillEBobb]

I had no luck on VMF with this question.  Maybe I will here.

I "found" a set of OEM instrument incandescent bulbs in my garage. All bulbs are marked with the Ford logo and each bulb has bears a numeral next to the logo. (As I remember, a friend sent them to me years and years ago.  Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to label the bag.)

IF these are those bulbs, he contended that later decade Fords used a brighter bulb.

Does anybody know what is indicated by the number? I know it's got me stumped.

Numbers are: 6 or 9 (?), 7, 16, 18, 22, 26, 29, 32, 35, 37, 40, 41, 46, 47, 48, 51, 53, 59, 60 and 62.

Okay, you Ford aficionados, here's one for you! lol


Bill

[CharlesTurner]

All the bulbs are the same and have all those different numbers???

[BillEBobb]

All the bulbs are the same and have all those different numbers???

Charles, yes, all the bulbs are the same but the bases have all those different numbers. Makes no sense to me -- assembly line workers would not be able to read those tiny numbers to put a specific bulb in a specific hole, that's for sure. Since all the bulbs are the same (GE 194) this leaves me in a quandary as to what the number could possibly represent.  I just know that I had never seen this before.

[midlife]

I think those were used for Bingo on the assembly line...

[CharlesTurner]

The bulb ID is usually ink-stamped on the base.  What you may be seeing with all the different numbers is simply a batch/machine ID, which is used to make the bases of the bulbs.

[NEFaurora]

Have noticed on '68-'70 cars that some of the back of the plastic bulb holders (what the bulb sits in, then is screwed into the back of the dash cluster) are sporatically differently numbered.. That's about all I can add to on this one....lol...

Tony K.