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Wed May 09, 2012 7:53 pm

I took my wife's Syncro out for a drive tonight. When I turned on the light switch, there were no dash lights. I turned the dimmer back and forth and found an odd situation.
The headlights are on.
When the dial is all the way to the left, no dash lights, but the tach stops working, the temp gauge stops working, and the other dash lights (stereo and cig lighter) go dim.
When the dimmer is turned all the way to right, no dash lights, the tach works, the temp gauge works but the red light begins to blink. Coolant level is fine.
This was not happening before she took it in to have the MC replaced last week.
I took the switch out of my Syncro to determine if it is the switch, swapped them out and got the same issues.
Any thoughts or experience with this?

Wed May 09, 2012 8:31 pm

I suspect a ground wire was disconnected and not re-connected. Remove the instrument cluster cover, and the cluster too, if you can't see any dislodged wires. When wrestling with the master cylinder and disconnecting the brake lines and wires, there is plenty of opportunity to accidentally disconnect a wire. That is probably what happened. Any brown wire should always end at a ground point.

The light switch itself has one main connector and one or two (can't recall exactly) single wires connecting to it. Look for a wire in proximity to the light switch that is disconnected.

Good luck!

Wed May 09, 2012 9:02 pm

Howesight wrote: I suspect a ground wire was disconnected and not re-connected. Remove the instrument cluster cover, and the cluster too, if you can't see any dislodged wires. When wrestling with the master cylinder and disconnecting the brake lines and wires, there is plenty of opportunity to accidentally disconnect a wire. That is probably what happened. Any brown wire should always end at a ground point.

The light switch itself has one main connector and one or two (can't recall exactly) single wires connecting to it. Look for a wire in proximity to the light switch that is disconnected.

Good luck!

Thanks, I was suspecting that as the culprit! Too dark to check out now, but thank you.

Wed May 23, 2012 11:16 am

I am having the same issue. last week I removed the bolts for the fuse box and found one of the ground blocks to be badly corroded. Cleaned all the connections and the "dimmer issue" was fixed for a few days. last night the problem came back. I still suspect a ground wire problem but have not found the bad connection yet.