Re: How To Fix Dashboard Lights That Won't Light
When I bought my current, 1999 E-350 rig there were no dash lights (which I didn't notice as I only test drove it on a sunny day). Rotated headlight knob to no avail. Then I checked fuses and all were okay. Then I read the Ford diagnostic procedure and it sounded slightly above my skill level, so I thought about what might be mostly likely to be wrong, and figured I'd "throw that one part at it" before taking it to someone else or learning more about how to diagnose. To my mind, that rotating headlight knob seemed like something that would be most likely to quit functioning (the rotation that dims or brightens the dash lights).
So, I got a new headlight switch and put it in. Bingo, dash lights worked perfectly and have remained that way for over a year and many thousand miles.
Of course that sounds way too smooth, right? Well, it was new to me at the time, and a friend with an E-450 said "Oh, if you disconnect the battery you may then need a radio code, do you have a radio code?" Gah, no, I did not. So I didn't disconnect the battery. And then stupidly let the end of a wrench touch something under the dash by the headlight switch. Which turned out to have caused the power locks to quit working properly (which I then had diagnosed and fixed at a shop while it was in for other work). Of course I later found out that nothing happens to the radio when disconnecting the battery, so that was inaccurate information and I could easily have disconnected it (which I do now before doing work!). But aside from that stupid glitch (and the fact that the headlight knob is a bit "buried" in there), it was an easy fix.
Viva
|