illumination bypass?
 

Hello, I manged to get all my console lights to go out while changing stereo. By console I mean, window switches in center, ac/heat control lights, stereo illumination gone. All the items described still work fine, just the lighting is gone. I think I crossed the illumination wire and the constant while changing stereo and blew a fuse, it would be cool if I could change a fuse but have no idea which fuse I blew since all the fuses under the hood are still good.. Does anyone know how I can fix without pulling the cluster and soddering a new wire to a circuit there. My cigerette light still works, can I splice into that and still enable dimming effect, how do I do this? Can I splice into any of the wires and add a fuse? thanks

I would pull cluster and check if you have one the red socket type fuses on back of the cluster, they look like one of the black light bulb sockets from the back but it is red and it is a fuse. I know 124 have one, not sure about others. If that blows you can lose lighting.

thanks for the reply
 

I pulled it out, and yes it is blown. My lighting on my ac/ heater, window switches went bad when I changed stereo but the dash lights still worked. When I tryed to bypass illumination by plugging in to a light bulb on back of cluster is when I lost all lights in the cluster. Can you tell me why this happened, did the fuse go somewhat bad and then bad all the way?

you probably made a short accidentally that blew the fuse. you should disconnect negative battery cable when pulling the cluster.

I think this is what happened to my interior illumination also,
so it was a red fuse on the back of the cluster that blew out?
I'm goin to go to the dealership and get those hooks to pull the cluster out today and check this out.

very likely. i would just buy one of the red fuses when you go to the dealer, it probably costs $1.

I removed the dash, and found the red socket you talk about..
Is this blown?

The red socket with the fuse.
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/3053/dsc054699xp.jpg

The Fuse inside socket, it looks like part of the metal strips on it has come off..
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/1847/dsc054734gi.jpg

How much does this cost? I don't see this item in parts shop..I'm assuming the dealership has it?

I went to the dealership for this bulb/fuse, and they did not have it. The guy at the counter said he had never seen it, nor did this mechanic. He pulled up a pic of the instrument cluster and said there's nothing he can see there that was like that. He said there were only black bulb holders, no red holders.

Does anyone here know what the part number would be ?

Part number: 201-546-00-25 - "Fuse Element - Instrument Cluster"

Thanks for the fuse part number, Illumination problem fixed!