Hi all,
I'm working on fixing up a 1985 500 SEL and have a question. My dash board and climate control have no lights. The instruments and climate control works just fine but there just no lights. Head lights, parking lights, emergency lights, and signal lights works just fine. My dad imported this car from Germany, so everything is in German (ie. manual and labels). I looked at the fused box and and the labels are in German, so I have no clues as to what fuse belong to what. I inspected the fuses and they all looked OK. It's a type of fuse I'm not familiar with. It's a little plastic rod with the fuse metal strip that's not cover by glass. The fuse looks OK and none of them have the metal strip snap or burned. Any recommendation on how to trouble shoot this problem would be greatly appreciated.

 

there is a rheostat that dims or brightens the light. have you tried that?

 

Yes, I did tried the rheostat and there were no lights. I took a look at the fuse box and noticed that the fuses were rather corroded. I'm sure there were not changed in 20 years. Now, non of them were burned or snapped but just corroded. I'm going to replace them to see if that will solve the problem.

 

Your bulbs are out, if they are in the cluster, that will have to be removed and the bulbs changed, If there are switch bulbs out, you will probably have to replace the switches. My 79 450SLC switches have these bulbs I guess you would call them that are very tine and connected to a piece of wire. there is a bulb on either end. In the owners manual it says replace the switch. But when I went to the local dealer these wire lights are avaiable. But the hookup is the thing that puzzles me. As they will come out of the switch, and the tiny bulb is surrounded by copper on both ends. I think you pull out the burn out one and slip the new bulb into the switch holder for the bulb and the other end into another switch. I think they "work" from current in the switch. Th shop manual I have shows a different set up with a ground post in back of the dash. But I have three of 4 switches on the dash that don't work. I bought one string, and I am going to hook them up the way I described above and see what happens? As far as the dash pod, on my car the steering wheel has to be removed and the pod simple pulls out from the top or pushes out from the bottom, but you have to be careful as there are wires and cables back there. Don't know how your instruments pod is set up.