most of my dash lights are gone

estate gav · Post by **estate gav** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:18 pm

had a rather impressive puff of smoke from the back of the dashboard.all the back lighting, parking brake, and stop lights have given up the ghost.abs.glow plug,oil pressure lights still working.all fuses appear to be ok.any ideas gratefully recieved. thanks

ken newbold · Post by **ken newbold** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:48 pm

No idea

You're going to have to take out the instrument panel and look for signs of trouble.

The only thing I can think of, there is a resistor toward the left side from memory that gets hot when in use, maybe your got too hot.

DLM · Post by **DLM** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 2:14 pm

I came across a dash circuit board from as petrol BX on Friday - if that's the right name for a something where the circuits are on various overlapping sheets of plastic. There certainly is a resistor as described by Ken in pretty close proximity to some the central vertical warning lights. Is it the whole set of these lights that have gone? I'll try and post a pic.

If this is the problem, I hope that nothing more than the resistor has burnt out, as it there's potential for damaging those sheets of plastic if something's got seriously hot there.

Another thought occurs: as the dash backlights have also stopped working, it'd do no harm to prise out the rheostat from underneath the steering-column shroud (no dismantling necessary) and test resistances across it with a meter.

If that went completely open-circuit or infinite resistance then I could imagine it causing the kind of problem you describe, though I've never heard of it happening before on a BX with the exact consequences you describe. The rheostats do die sometimes - I've replaced a couple.

christhelion · Post by **christhelion** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 12:06 pm

I had a smell of burning on mine followed by all the dash lights going out. not had a look yet since the car is off the road. the warning lights all work but none of the green back lighting works anywhere. I'm assuming it's just some short but does anyone know a likely place to find it? Last winter it was irritating using the interior light to check my speed

estate gav · Post by **estate gav** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 9:20 pm

I think i have traced the problem back to one dash bulb where the contact was crossed at the base of the bulb causing a short and resulting in the bbqing of the p.c.b behind the speedo.I haven't had time to do anything about it yet.Will keep you posted