Poof! There it is...n't
 

My 87 190E dash-lights are out and I can't get it back up! I took a corner and a wire must've touched something behind my CD Player, because the dash-lights went out then. I checked the fuse, it's good.
My turn indicators work and so do the warning lights when I start
it up. I checked the bulbs, they're good. Is there someplace else
I can check?
It hard to tell how fast I'm going at night. Any help is appreciated!

I'm going to ask a dumb question: Any chance the dimmer potentiometer somehow got turned down recently? (We recently had a thread similar to yours and after much discussion about diagnostic issues, turned out to be this ...)

Thanks for your quick reply. I did check the dimmer and it's not
that. The dashlights were on when the "incident" happened,
then "poof" they went out.

If your car is like mine...and probably is.
 

There is a fuse behind the cluster. It looks like a regular light bulb holder but it is red. The bad new is the only way to check is to take the instrument cluster out and check. Good luck!:cool:

My potentiometer went poof one night. Had to pull the cluster and installed a new one. Was easily able to resolder the old one, and kept it as a spare.

I took the cluster out today, but I didn't see a red fuse holder.
Is it hidden somewhere? If I need to change-out the potentiometer, is this a "dealer only" item? Thanks for the
replys everyone! I feel I'm very close to solving this problem.

It can be found here and other parts sources.

Dash Light Rheostat

Davanyo, I'm 99% certain this is your problem:

Have the instrument cluster out (you don't have to take it all the way out, it can just be sitting on the steering column with all the wires still connected). Look at the dash light rheostat, which is the unit right behind the knob that dims the lights. On my car it's beige. This unit has it's own fuse, and it just broke on mine last week. I soldered it back together and it works fine now. Check out your rheostat's fuse and let us know how it looks.

I didn't see anything that looks like a fuse, but I did solder the
2 leads to the light-dimmer. I still don't have lights that work.
I'm going to take out the instrument cluster and test the bulbs
with power, instead of just looking at them. Thanks again for the
help!