I just purchased a 01 GS500 and the light bulb on the Tachometer is burned out.  Can anyone tell me if their is a easy way to get a new bulb in or if I have to rip the hole thing apart and how to go about that.

Just remove the drive cable and the 2 little acorn nuts one on each side of the cable and you can slide the tach up out of the housing and unplug the bulb socket to replace the bulb.  Quite easy.

Same for the speedometer except you also have to remove the reset knob.  There is a small screw down the center hole of it that can be removed with a jewelers size screwdriver to pull knob out.

also..if you want some cool colors or make it brighter you can use LED's. The bulb size is 194. I have blue LED's in my tach and speedometer and they are much brighter than the stock and the blue color makes it look really cool at night.

Quote from: seamaxalso..if you want some cool colors or make it brighter you can use LED's. The bulb size is 194. I have blue LED's in my tach and speedometer and they are much brighter than the stock and the blue color makes it look really cool at night.

Did you just use 12 volt blue leds or did you get them somewhere special??

12 volt LED's...I usually order them from here

www.superbrightleds.com

I have blue bulbs in mine. Dont buy blue colored zenon light if you buy bulbs... cos blue zenon's burn white... bright white... like scorch your retina bright... Bad for the dash, but trunk bulbs in cars overhead lights etc in cars have the same bulbs and the extra light helps. Anyway 194's are available in many many shades at walmart.
Cool.
Srinath.

Old post I know, but
(1) thanks to all who replied to this and the other speedo/tach burned-out-bulb threads.  It sure stinks to get on the road and not know your indicated speed.  That gauge is pretty dark without the light, though I could sort of see it if there was any overhead light, like what was reflected off my helmet.  Scary on the highway though.  The hints on fixing it were appreciated.
(2) I got a blue incandescent #194 bulb for the speedo at Wal-Mart.  It looks a bit dimmer but might be OK.   They were out of clear ones.  The blues are a lot dimmer than what was still alive in the tach (see (3)).  I'll look into the l.e.d.'s when I get a chance.   For now  I'll have to ride around once at night when the weather clears to see if the incandescent blues are bright enough for me.

(3) Just one thing to add.  Some P.O. had put a bulb in the tach that must have burned too hot.  When I turned the key and held the bulb, it got relatively hot real fast in my fingers.  Much hotter faster than the blue ones I bought.  Moreover, with that bulb in the tach looks fine during the day (duh!), but at night you can see that light way too well through the face.  It was llike the light maybe was burning out the paper from behind. With that bulb the face lights up like a photo from an astro camera's long-exposed film of the night sky.  So many near-pinpricks about to poke through,   It even made reading the dial difficult.  Until I found that the bulb seemed very hot, I just thought my tach face was not aging well.  Now  I hope the face wasn't actually damaged by the bulb.  Looks healthy (but dimmer) with the blue bulb.

My point is it seems like there are some much hotter bulbs that will fit, that I think one should avoid.  Anyone can feel free to contradict me.

FWIW,
Mike D.