Nate-03 D

I noticed the other night that I have a few lights going bad on my instrument cluster and on my heater/ac controls.

On my instrument cluster, my RPM and my fuel gauge are very very dim. They are not completely dead but you can tell they are not nearly as bright as everything else. What's a guy got to do to get them lit back up?

On my heater/ac controls it's the same thing as above, but the light almost seems to have a fade effect to it. Some of the settings are lit bright and the others are nearly dead. Is their individual lights for these controls?

I don't think that these two issues are correlated, the RPM and fuel gauge have been like this for a while, I just noticed the other controls started doing this 2 days ago.

Thanks.

mishkaya

I ended up tearing the instrument cluster out of the 05 about a month ago, and they have standard bulbs in them, and I would assume the heater controls would be the same way. I would suggest replacing the bulbs, and making sure there is no corrosion on the contacts for some reason. That is the only thing I can think of that would make them dim, other than the fact that they may be getting ready to go. Don't have the FSM handy at the moment to see which bulbs you need though.

Nate-03 D

Alright, sounds like I have something to do for the weekend. Haha.

Thanks man.

MulesDiesel

how hard is it to remove the instrument cluster? I have the same problem.
also, I read that the hvac lights are soldered in? and the circuit board needs to be replaced?

mishkaya

Don't know about the HVAC lights as I did not mess with it. The instrument cluster took less than 1/2 hr to remove. It's not bad at all to get to really.

Nate-03 D

Do you happen to know what light bulbs the clusters take?

pullin hard

i did this on my 03 truck, cluster lights were dim in a few spots, the lights are cheap at the dealer, i only need 2 lights, dealer told me to replace all of them while i was in there, i figure why bother. well do your self a favor and replace them all, cause after i did the 2 i needed to do, a few days later more went out. i think there is 10 or 12 of them little suckers in there. and they were like a buck a piece i think, either way, change them all cuase you might end up doing it twice.

Nate-03 D

lol, that's got to be a cliche. Cheap parts at a dealer?

Thanks for the advice. Any idea about the HVAC controls?

pullin hard

i had my controls out one day, and when i put them back in and plugged them in i had a light out, so i took it back out and i couldn't see where the bulbs would go, so i put it back in, wouldn't you know it the light worked again. 2 days later the other side went out. i was going to unplug it again to see what would happen, but never got that chance, the shop i was renting where i do my work and store stuff burnt down. so i really can't say