Tonight I did the coolest repair:
Had no dash lights, and thought it was the headlight switch. Swapped it out with an old switch I had laying around, no difference. Ohmed out the switch, and found the one I swapped in had a broken rheostat wire. I (now) dimly remember keeping the switch as an 'emergency' repair, as the rheostat wire was broken. Well, I was able to repair the wire, and the good one got put back on the shelf. But, still no dash lights. Swapping the switch wasn't wasted time however, because the plug was barely on the switch, and I had to pull the switch out to get enough leverage to put the plug on correctly.
I'm checking the voltage at the fuse, and I'm getting solid 12 volts regardless of the position of the rheostat. I'm now guessing missing ground..
So, I'm looking for the cause, and discover a broken trace on the circuit card. The traces for the right hand top dash light were busted loose, and the ground trace was broke in half.
Well, here is the cool part.. on my back, upside down, I soldered a jumper wire onto the trace,( dodging the drops of molten solder raining down ) and screwed the other end of the jumper under the circuit card ground screw. VOLIA! I now have dash lights! Wasn't able to fix that corner light, but can get by without it.
