Ok this is like the umpteenth time i've posted this question cuz I'm dying to get the problem fixed. It looks so gay to drive around a newly painted black firebird, badass motor, and decent interior but NO red guage lights!!! Dash is completely black at night. Damnit it sucks driving like this.........Here's a refresher of what happened. Was installing some aftermarket autometer guages, one of the bulbs that came with the autometer gauges was touching metal inside its housing grounding out (it was like this before I even removed from package.....didn't notice) so when I turned the key on for the first time to test the guage lights.....the wire going to that light bulb starting smoking IMMEDIATELY, **** almost caught fire, so I turned the key off, investigated and found the grounded bulb. Well I wired the guages up right, but ever since then the factory red gauge bulbs don't light up, and it wasn't the fuse. I replaced every single fuse, the problem is somewhere else. The wires I used to get power for the autometers were those gray/black centerconsule lights........any ideas?? Anything at all??? Is there any way I could just re-wire the guage lights myself and bypass the factory fuses and stuff?? Which wire under my dash powers the guage lights? Its an 88 L03 T-5 harness firebird. thanx

 

355,

You likely damaged the output transistor in the dimmer module. The module is located under the dash, near the radio pedestal. There is a large transistor that actually regulates the voltage to the instrument lamps instead of the load being controlled directly by the potentiometer in the light switch assembly.



The circuit looks something like this:

 

Vader,
Thanx for the pictures! I'll go investigate it right now. Thanx
Chris

 

see my "dashlight troubleshooting" article for more information on this topic:

http://www.p71interceptor.com/thirdgen/remotedimmer