Dash lights

[jory]

One of the problems that came with my car when I bought it was that the dash didn't light up with the exterior lights. Now that it is running and road ready after the engine swap I need those to work. The fuse is good and I swapped the switch out with no change, I also poked around with the test light and the 5A fuse has nothing on either side. What parts of the circuit should I be looking at next? The map light works and dome light comes on when I turn on the switch, but not when the driver door is open. Anybody been through this? Please offer some assistance.

[JDAWG]

what car? Could be a ground problem or the circuit board itself. Might be easy enough to swap a cluster

[JDAWG]

also did you try a new bulb in one of the sockets? I have seen over half of the bulbs bad before, some people just say screw it and dont replace them

[Tranquillity]

He's totally right, I replaced all 9 little bulbs behind the gauge cluster of my Spirit ES. Looks great now, most likely will fix it if the fuses are fine.

[zin]

If the circuit doesn't have power on either side of the fuse, you need to backtrack that circuit to the source to find where the break in power transmission is happening... Could be a fusible link, could be wire with an internal break (that's a fun one to find!), or just a corroded terminal/wire...

That's where I would start anyway, nothing is going to work if the fuse feeding power isn't passing power itself.

Mike

[jory]

Its a 89 Daytona. It did this even before I swapped the engine harness with an 88 shelby z one so that tells me it is a problem inside the car. It might be easier for me to feed power to the fuse from the headlights or something.

[puppet]

Just be careful you don't fry that cluster harness. I've got pretty much the same issue with my '89. Been trying to get it fixed for about a year on and off. Tried all of the above to get it resolved but so far no luck.

[jory]

I messed around with it and when I was ready to splice the instrument circuit it started working again. Maybe it was a loose wire at the fuse or something, glad I got it working one way or the other.