Hi there, I have a 1986 Trans am and prior to today the cluster lights worked, i was able to dim them as well. I was driving the the car at night and while I was driving I turned the headlights off and on just to make sure the were on. When I did that the cluster lights stopped working and I don’t know how to fix it. I replaced the 5amp fuse in the fuse box under the steering wheel and nothing.

The head light still work and I noticed when I push in the light for the cluster the radio clock goes away idk if that has any relevance.

can someone please help me

 

Have you removed your smog pump? I had a very similar issue and the connections for the smog pump were grounding out on the intake.

 

Im not 100%, I bought the car last year and it had a 350 crate engine swap.

They only thing prior that wasn’t working on the dash was the km, everything else was working. Like i said it was working while I was driving, I turned the headlights on and off then the cluster had no light.

 

I should mention that the head lights still work when i turn them on and off

 

Sounds like the "dimmer module" (a 2N3055 transistor) has failed. Pretty common really. It's mounted on a heatsink about 3" square and something less than an inch thick. The transistor itself looks like this.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/...2N3055G/918206

 

Is this easy to replace ?

 

Is brain surgery easy for a brain surgeon?

Easy for some of us, but since you're smarter than me (everybody is), it should be a walk in the park.

It lives near the headlight switch. Easiest way to get to that is to pop the dash out acoupla inches. You might be able to get to it just taking out the cluster. Which doesn't take even 5 minutes. Even if you're slow like me.