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Dash light issues

5187 Views 11 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  26 Caprice, 
exocet
I installed a new stereo over the weekend. Once completed, I went for a drive (at night) and everything seemed fine.

Tonight, however, I was driving at night with my head lights on, but noticed that the backlights for the climate controls, and for the t/s cluster were totally dead. The headlights are fine, the main instrument cluster, and the trip and e/m buttons were lit up fine. The dimmer works on the main cluster, trip and e/m buttons.

I just did a quick eyeball at the fuse panel, and no fuses appear to be blown. Any idea what I should check next? I read in a couple of posts about checking a particular 15a fuse that wasn't obviously related. I'll take a closer look at that tomorrow. Thanks in advance.
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exocet
*bump*

No one has experienced this issue? I did read all the other related posts I could find.. of course, the posts titles that look to be more closely related were prior to the crash.. :(
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WwWdotanthony92
I would check the fuses with a multimeter just to make sure. Sounds like a recent thread where the guy was either installing or taking out his dome light (blew a fuse and didnt see the hairline fracture in it till the second go round). I think it was a 25a fuse.

May not be your problem but thats where I would start.
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exocet
Yes, I just came across that post today, and it made me think twice about the fuses. They all looked fine at a quick glance. I'll start there and post back if I come up with nothing. Thanks!
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Fred Kiehl
It all goes through one 20 A fuse. You may have cut/disconnected a gray wire. All of the panels should have seperate wires and grounds. There may be a connector which services the stereo and the other components that was altered in the stereo installation.
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exocet
I purchased a wire adapter for the stereo so I wouldn't have to touch any factory wiring. I will say that the new stereo matched all the wiring, except it didn't have any of the two orange wires that the factory wiring uses for the dimming. I just wrapped those up and tucked them away since they weren't used. Not using the dimmer wires for the stereo wouldn't have affected the rest of the dash lights, would it, since you said the panels have separate wires and grounds?
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exocet
I've checked all my fuses using a tester, and they all appear to be good. Any other ideas on what to check on that would affect just the climate control and the headlight control panels only?
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Fred Kiehl
I looked at my wiring diagram again, and there is a 10 amp fuse "int dim" that affects all lights. There is also a 15 amp "ctsy pwr lock" but it affects all the lights too. You may have a broken wire. It would be gray. I do not see any other issues. Did you try disconecting the radio, to see if they work without the radio?
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exocet
Hey Fred, I haven't done that yet (I was hoping to avoid it!). Since the stock unit was less deep than the aftermarket head unit, I did have to cut a little on the backside of the enclosure. Although I was careful, all I can think of is that I might have possibly nicked a wire. I'll take another look and see if i can find anything out of the ordinary. Thanks for the advice.
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Fred Kiehl
The backside of the enclosure is the AC duct. You may have some other issues with the AC. Someone cut into my ducting before I got my 91, and the AC was really strange until I patched the hole.
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exocet
I didn't cut into the duct at all. I just cut away a vertical section of flimsy ABS in front of that that joins the shelf for the climate controls, and the shelf for the stereo.
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26 Caprice

Did you ever find out what was the problem with the panel lights?
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