'66 Instrument Panel Lights Don't Work

[Mark P.]

I just replaced my under dash wiring harness and everything works great.... except my instrument panel lights. Any words of wisdom as to where to look for normal spots? Could it be a bad ground? The ground to the central cross support under the dash is a little iffy. Anyway, I had some non-functioning gauges and bad wiring (and splices that a previous owner did)....and the instrument panel lights used to work fine. Of course...isn't that the way it goes?

I'm hoping it's something simple that I missed because I'm not excited about pulling that out again. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

[William L.]

Re: '66 Instrument Panel Lights Don't Work

A good place to start is the conections form the firewall side to the interior side. Sometimes when you push the plugs together they will miss alineand and push a pin back, it will not make a good conection. It where I would start.
Bill

[Clark D.]

Re: '66 Instrument Panel Lights Don't Work

There is a ground lug at the very very top of the cluster housing on the back side. A connector from the wiring harness slides onto this lug for grounding. Very easy to miss. I would check it.

[Mark P.]

Re: '66 Instrument Panel Lights Don't Work

I'm not in front of the car right now, but is there one specific pin that only powers the panel lights?

Mark

[John H.]

Re: '66 Instrument Panel Lights Don't Work

Mark -

There are no connections or terminals in the firewall multiple connectors that have anything to do with only the instrument lights; they're all fed from their fuse in the fuse block via gray wires, and the feed to the fuse from the headlight switch rheostat terminal is a dark green wire. They get their ground from the back side can on the cluster. If the cluster isn't grounded, the wipers and lighter won't work either. Check for power on both sides of the fuse (and make sure the rheostat knob isn't turned to full dim).

[Mark P.]

Re: '66 Instrument Panel Lights Don't Work

Yes, I did check the knob and it isn't the problem...in fact, the switch was hammered, so I replaced it with a repop(it wasn't an original anyway), but to no avail. Since everything else works, I'll have to look for other issues. I think they aren't getting power for whatever reason and I'll follow it until I find out why.

Thanks for the suggestions and input,
Mark