Hello everyone.

One of the problems with the vehicle has always been the one that every now and then the complete illumination of instruments and switches would disappear. When I pulled the instrument cluster out an inch the lights would go on again. Pushing the panel back would sometimes result in lights going out again. Sometimes not. I checked the resistor (dimmer), it was OK. This has been the case for a few years - after fiddling with the instrument cluster lights would be back and I couldn't be bothered taking everything apart searching for the causer of all of this.

Once the lights disappeared and nothing helped. I took the cluster out and apart and resoldered everything I saw inside it. Just to make sure. Lights would be on but pushing the cluster back would result in lights going off again. Eww! They would eventually go on.

Yesterday they went off completely and nothing ever helped. I made an appointment with the local MB dealer to have a look at that. Was worth the few $$$ I thought to get rid of that bug. I got an appointment for the forthcoming Wednesday 11th.

In the meantime I took the instrument cluster apart and VOILA! Owing to the fact that this time the lights wouldn't work permanently I was able to trace the faulty part. After all these years...

There are 2 prongs on which the dimming resistor sits, soldered through the circuitry board. One of the prongs seemed to be soldered perfectly but had no contact to next part of the circuitry board. I resoldered that very part. Since then I have light. I cancelled my MB appointment