Ok I can't seem to get my dash lights to work, but that's not a problem, I can just mount my own LED setups and hook them up to switches. But what I need to know is how the stock ones work. Do the factory lights shine THROUGH the gauges from behind, or illuminate them by just shining light on them from the front/side? The bulbs are behind the gauges so it would seem that they shine THROUGH the gagues, but the gauges don't look to be translucent at all.
There are bulbs mounted in the rear of the gauge cluster. Often, when the lights don't work at all it is either a problem at the fuse block with the particular fuse that protects the lights or at the headlight switch itself. It is possible that there was a meltdown with the ribbon which conducts the power at the rear of the cluster, but the other problems I mentioned are more common.
My problem was the inst cluster and ribbon were broke, now on the new one i had one light bulb missing and none of them work so i went to auto zone and picked up some new ones..
On to the guages, the light bounces off the walls to light it up, kinda crappy setup. You could just replace the bulbs with some 5W5 bulbs check your fuses and you will be just as happy as you would with LED's.
hmm. I'm still thinking of creating my own custom LED setup, just because I want to do something different. Was thinking a nice dull blue or red LED near the center of the speedometer, and maybe some white and red ones behind the turn signal indicators. That way when you used your turn signal they would be white, but when you hit your brakes the red ones would light up.
Dash Lights I apologize for this question in advance. I dont know anything about cars and have two left hands. I recently picked up a 1976 Maverick (4-door, automatic trans) Runs great but body is in bad shape. Lots of rust. Here is the problem: I dont have any dash lights. I have checked the fuses and all seem to be ok. It could be that one of the empty fuse slots is the dash light fuse slot. How do you know what fuse does what? Do you take each one out at a time and try to figure it out? Also, how in the heck do you find the light bulb? Surely you don't have to take the dash out to find it! Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
The fuses are marked on the block. Just because the fuse is ok, doesn't mean that everything is ok there. I had problems with a film on the blades blocking the current. Cleaning the blades corrected this problem. The bulbs are in back of the gauges and you really have to remove the cluster to get to them. FYI, it is a very small fuse to the lower left of the block if you are looking at it.
the dimmer switches in both of my mavs are bad but if i turn it really slow the lights will come on at a certain point. took me a while to figure it out. Good luck
