'89 Daytona ES next issue- No dash lights!

I've posted more issues on this car than any other car I've worked on. For this week's post, I have no lights in the instrument cluster or for the boost gauge. The red indicators for the doors/hatch open DO work, but I don't think that's related.

Removing the instrument cluster and applying 12v to the pins confirms that the lights themselves do work.

Fuse is good, have not confirmed power present at the fuse. I did find a thread where the issue was a loose wire at the back of the fuse box, that will be my next check. The fuse box mount is broken and the box was just dangling, which seems pretty common for these.

Power is NOT present at the pins in the red dial socket which should supply power to the lights, regardless of headlamp switch position.

Aftermarket stereo wiring is a clean professional job, which was a nice surprise.

Headlamp switch and associated wiring are incredibly clean with none of the usual scorching, however nothing has been tested yet. I need to find the wiring diagram to determine which wire(s) need to be checked. Headlamp module also looks brand new for that matter, and all other lights throughout the car work as they should, including door jamb switches, turn signal indicators, parking brake indicator, check engine light, etc.

Not really sure what other info would be useful, but I'm open to any suggestions.

Not sure if it's your problem, but I occasionally notice that mine are not lit after turning the lights on. I don't often drive this car in the dark. I usually move the headlight switch around a bit, and they come on. Good luck!

So by sheer luck, I located the problem. Back track to chasing down the reverse light problem, I had found a small piece of metal resting in the bottom of the dash near the fuse box. I didn't give it much thought, I figured it was broken off a spring clip from somewhere above.

I had all but given up on the lighting problem and was starting to just put everything back together again. I happened to notice a powdery green chunk of something rolling around in the dimmer spring of the headlight switch, so figured I'd at least try to get that out of there. This time, I looked over the switch very carefully, trying to see where that chunk had come from, and I noticed there was nothing contacting the dimmer spring itself. I pulled an extra switch off the shelf and compared them, and now I saw where that broken piece of metal had come from.

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