Dash lights and door light switch

asidrave · asidrave's Garage

Finally got to drive the car around a bit and its nice.....i missed how the 944's drove

anyways, the dash instrument lights dont come on with the headlights on. the rest of the lights do come on. checked the fuses...ok and rolled the dimmer...no luck. I didnt go deeper that that...hopefully today.

also when the doors are closed the interior light stays on...it dims a bit when the doors are closed...otherwise stays on unless i switch the lights off....same in the hatch light too. now i know why the battery died so soon

i should have time either today or this weeked to find out why. Im hoping the gurus could point me in the right direction where to start looking.

thanks

aj951 · 07-20-2012, 06:09 AM

As far as the interior lights staying on, I would start with the door switches located in the door jam. You can try and clean them with some contact cleaner from Radio Shack or just replace them.

AJ

Slam · 07-20-2012, 07:58 AM

Early or late car? Check to make sure the door switches' wiring doesn't have a ground fault. They shouldn't be grounded unless the door is open.

asidrave · asidrave's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slam

Early or late car? Check to make sure the door switches' wiring doesn't have a ground fault. They shouldn't be grounded unless the door is open.

85.5....with the newer dash....i assume early. i do plan on removing and checking the door switches first thing

Grandad#3 · 07-20-2012, 04:01 PM

The 85.5 with the oval dash is considered the later model 944, but has the EARLY wheel offset. The 87 model 944's came with the LATE wheel offset. Never assume anything.

Cheers,
Larry

asidrave · asidrave's Garage

ok....so i checked the instrument cluster lights again this evening. they do work. I didnt know they illuminate from the bottom of the dash towards the gauges. i checked them in the early evening last night. they do look dim.....i ASSUME

..... they are supposed to look like that. i thought they illuminated from behind the gauges. i removed the surrounding bezel and the lights do look bright.

the door light switches started to work like they should. I will check the switches tho tomorrow.

mytrplseven · mytrplseven's Garage

Those lights are dim because the bulbs have silvered and the bottom of the plastic that's supposed to refract the light to the gauges has turned to crap. There's a repair kit for fixing the gauge cluster lighting: Ebay lister: 9xauto. $28 for the kit.