KISS dash light fix

[Pete Burton]

For over 9 years I've fiddled with the dash light rheostat, trying to get it to stay bright enough. It's never been "too bright". Finally, it got to the point I could hardly see anything. So I bent up my little piece of coathanger and pulled the instrument cluster out a bit. The ceramic rheostat housing was chipped and the wiper coil was hanging out. It was really beyond repair. I removed the one screw from the back and unplugged the rheostat. I pried the metal case/clip off and removed the guts. Stripped the ends of a 1" piece of scrap wiring and soldered a jumper across the 2 terminals on the back of the housing. Plugged it back on the back of the instrument panel, replaced the screw, and pushed the panel back into place.

It works great. Perfect brightness for me. no more fooling with that knob. The whole job only took 15 minutes and 1 beer.

[92497pmu]

mmm beer....

job well done

[vwbuge]

That prboably would have taken me 2-3 beers. The easier the job the more beer it takes.

Lately the beer of choice has been Molson Golden.

[Brian Carlton]

IIRC, for about $20.00 you can replace the entire rheostat in the time it takes to pour the first beer.

Lately, the beer of choice has been Bass Ale. Molson is a bit too bitter for me.

[Austin85]

Good job,

Bass Ale is nice ; but it is even nicer with 1/2 pt. of Guinness Stout.

[Brian Carlton]

Originally Posted by Austin85

1/2 pt. of Guinness Stout.

I once had the displeasure of ordering Guinness Stout with a German who was visiting from the Fatherland.

He takes one sip of the Guinness and a horrible look comes over his face and he pronounces:

DISS ES NOT BEER

I have to say that I agree with him.

[Pete Burton]

Last time I checked, that silly little rheostat cost about $68. That buys a lot of Newcastle Brown Ale. " The one and only"

[Brian Carlton]

Originally Posted by Pete Burton

Last time I checked, that silly little rheostat cost about $68. That buys a lot of Newcastle Brown Ale. " The one and only"

Well, if M/B is now ripping folks off to the tune of that amount, then I firmly agree with you. Nobody needs the rheostat anyway.

[meltedpanda]

Originally Posted by Brian Carlton

Well, if M/B is now ripping folks off to the tune of that amount, then I firmly agree with you. Nobody needs the rheostat anyway.

I'll drink to that!

[propigskin]

Did the same thing last week. Works great. the max brightness on these dashes is not that bright anyways so always having it maxed out is a good thing!

[BrierS]

Too late in the year for beer . . . Scotch is the approaching winter choice.

[Keith_otr]

Originally Posted by Pete Burton

It works great. Perfect brightness for me. no more fooling with that knob. The whole job only took 15 minutes and 1 beer.

It probably would have taken me about 8-9 beers to do the job....but at that point, the brightness of the instrument cluster wouldn't really matter to me anyway.

[Eskimo]

The rheostat is currently priced at $36.32 at FastLane.

My instrument lights have been running with a KISS fix for months, now, though. The max brightness seems about right for me, so it's one of those temporary fixes that may stay permanent.

Oh, and I had a bottle of Pilzner Urquell this evening.

[Pete Burton]

Originally Posted by eskimo

The rheostat is currently priced at $36.32 at FastLane.

My instrument lights have been running with a KISS fix for months, now, though. The max brightness seems about right for me, so it's one of those temporary fixes that may stay permanent.

Oh, and I had a bottle of Pilzner Urquell this evening.

For $36 I MIGHT have sprung. But their price this morning is $64.68, at least for the 82 SD. It's the same with the tach thing. I'd spring if it was cheaper.

[meltedpanda]

Someone say scotch? Single malt Ardbeg here