I have a 96 850. love the car but not the problems its been giving me. When i first got the car, dash lights worked fine. then one night i hit a bump and everything went dark. I can pull over, turn off the car, then re-start and everything is fine for a few days. Well the frequency of this problem has increased to the point that the lights go off within a second or two of starting the car. I've jumped the dimmer switch(pins1 and 4) and that blows the fuse, so i pulled the cluster,climate control and radio still pops the fuse. any ideas?

 

I have a spare dimmer that works, they do go out. PM me if you want it. If all of them are out it's either your dimmer, your headlight switch or a bad ground somewhere.

 

I dont think its the dimmer. I bypass the dimmer switch and the fuse blows.I think I have a short somewhere and i was hoping it was common enough that others have found the problem. it seems that most others have had the rheostat problem and replacing the dimmer or jumping it has fixed the problem. I however never get that lucky. when I jumped the dimmer it blows the fuse

 

Pull the light switch out and see if it's falling apart in the back of it.

 

The light switch looks and feels perfect, nothing loose, no rattles, rotates smoothly with detents at off/parking/on positions

 

It sounds like you have a short someplace between the dimmer switch and wherever all the lights it controls ground. That isn't much of a help but it sounds like the problem you are having. Any chance you missed a nicked wire that's shorting to ground ??

 

Most definitely. So much crap in the way.

I pulled the center console to eliminate any problems there. still pops the fuse.

Anyone have any idea if there is something I missed that I can remove, thats powered by turning on the headlights?

 

I would swap the dimmer switch before I went digging into the dash.

 

Did you ever figure this out? Just bought my daughter a 97 with the exact same problem.