Drove the 914 home tonight, everythings fine, drive in the garage and the dash lights went out. Every other light seems to work fine, but just black gauges. Before I start digging around to much, anyone have any suggestions where to start?

Fuses. There's one fuse just for those lights....

--DD

If the fuse is Ok your headlight switch reostat my be dirty or bad. Mine failed last week.

Steve

Where did you see them last???

Eric

Fuses seem ok, but I will look again. Thx

I have had a fuse be bad but not look blown.

The dash lights are also hooked to the same circuit as the rear trunk light, and the license plate lights. If the sockets in the bumper corrode and short out, then the dash lights will go out. If you look at the back of the fuse box, the connection on the cold side of the fuse has 2 wires, one black with a blue tracer (doing this from memory, and I can't remember the color of the other wire). If the fuse is not blown, then check the rheostat in the headlight switch. If the fuse is blown, separate the two wires, and hook up just the dash light wires (black with blue tracer). If the light work, then start looking at the license plate wiring. If the fuse blows again, then start looking at the dash lights.


hope that helps.

Thanks for the pointers - license plate lights were working fine (last months problem). But found the problem - hot wire in defrost indicator light was touching the ground screw - easy fix (tech tip #708)

Chris,

Did your fuse keep blowing until you discovered the short? All my fuses look good and I replaced the fuse that runs the license plate & guage lights with a new one and I still can't get my guage lights to work. I'm starting to believe I need a new headlight switch due to the stat being worn or broken? It feels a bit grainy when I turn it from full bright to full dim unlike the properly functioning one in my other 914.

Bill