Club 80-90 Forums

Nice one, cheers Ralph

I'm hoping it'll be something simple so will update again once it's been done.

Thought I'd update this thread just in case anyone else is having the same symptoms. I today took out the light switch & cleaned up the connections and the dimmer part with a brush. I then pushed the little metal lever type thing on the dimmer downwards so that it is maker better contact & as if by magic all dash lights are working again!

Before I removed my dash dimmer for good, I shoved the multimeter on it and even at max (ie supposedly zero resistance) those dash dimmers barely give 11v so they're far from perfect and a poor contact is fairly typical after a lot of years use . They can be swapped out independently of rest of switch as you may have discovered. Got one in my parts bin but will never need one now.

Cheers Ralph, so you've removed yours altogether - anything specific you need to do for this mate?

Well, somewhat trial and error when replacing bulbs to get just the right brightness for night time use but once set it doesn't need messing with - ever. Theres just no point in the dimmer being there then.

To put things in context, during daylight hours I always drive with DRL lights and tail lights, which helps with visibility and as its all LEDs, theres little drain on the battery. The dash lights which are therefore on all the time, are barely noticeable during the day, but come into their own when exterior light is poor or reduced, say under bridges and trees and I can now see dash dials perfectly under all conditions.

I suppose theres a temptation to fit bright colours in dashes but from a practical point of view, some colours are not good, blue being the worst. I opted to soften it somewhat with a green light rather than white which is more comfortable on the eyes and less intrusive in the cab. Theres a sweet spot where the final brightness is just right for both day and night and it doesn't take long to find it. As LEDs require resistors, you just use a value that restricts maximum brightness. It also extends the lifespan of the LEDs beyond those given by the manufacturer (long after I'm dead for sure).

The reason I haven't opted for ready-made plug in replacements (apart from cost and reduced lifespan) is the lack of control as the light output (at max) is whatever you end up with. The stock dimmer sort of works with LED bulbs but only in a tiny range of the dimmer as LED brightness isn't linear. By restricting the LED output from the start, you can get things spot on and the dash dimmer is totally redundant. I could give you the values/circuit to do this yourself if you wanted to go that route.

As for the dimmer removal, once headlight switch is apart, you can remove it fairly easily amd join the two leftover wires together which leaves a nice rectangular hole that a rocker switch will drop nicely into. You don't have to use it for a chicken switch either, you could fit a switch that say puts on rear interior lights for passengers, or whatever takes your fancy. This probably needs a 'how to' WIKI article as I get asked about this quite a lot.

Today I've got other plans. My Chinese (£30) Sat Nav arrived last week which I have to say is brilliant compared to my old Tomtom and easy to see as its a 7" screen. It came with reversing camera (whoopee) which I'll be fitting today - providing it doesn't rain yet again.

Cheers for taking the time out to reply Ralph, sounds like a mod worth doing - I also like the idea of running DRL's as well so may combine the two once I get round to it.

Did you manage to fit your sat nav - any pics?!

No pics of sat nav until next weekend as I've decided to make a bracket to take the reversing cam that came with it, so its more of a top-down angle. Should get that done Saturday. Tested camera that comes with sat nav and it works well although decided to mod it so I can switch on camera independently. Will video it - much easier.

CovKid wrote:No pics of sat nav until next weekend as I've decided to make a bracket to take the reversing cam that came with it, so its more of a top-down angle. Should get that done Saturday. Tested camera that comes with sat nav and it works well although decided to mod it so I can switch on camera independently. Will video it - much easier.