I have quite a few dash bulbs out and the gauges ar very dim and I cannot read them well at night. I know just about the whole dash has to come apart, but any hints or How-To's?


thanks

 

I dunno about 98, but the 99's had an issue with the solder on the back of the gauge cluster if I remember correctly - does your 98 have a digital or old round style odometer?

 

non-digi. old school roller odom.

 

Does it have a shift indicator in the cluster. Not sure if they do, but on my old 01 Ranger it had the shift indicator in the cluster. If it does, the hardest part is getting the line disconnected that moves the indicator. On my Ranger once the cluster was out, it used the simple bulbs that just twist in and out. I was able to get the bulbs at the local Oreilly's.

 

This won't be affected by the issues I had with my 99, back to square one

I'm not familiar with the backlight system for this vehicle (maybe you can just change a bulb/fuse/whatever), but would it be cost effective to replace the entire cluster? I had the lights go out entirely on my 99, but the culprit was a bad fuse.

 

replace all the bulbs while you are in there, you dont want to have to do it twice. shoot me an email and i can give you instructions for 03 dash which should be all the same as yours

 

The 98 is pretty easy. You take the obvious dash components off to get at it . The gear indicator is prolly the trickiest to disconnect until you do it once. Theres three plugs in back of the cluster to disconnect.

You can test each bulb with a 1.5volt continuity tester - that will illuminate the dash bulb itself to test.

Most of the problems I had was contact problems. Steel wool and a fine brass wire brush cleaned them right up..

 

So they are just a bunch of little bulbs?

 

yea bulb is about 1/4" across should be 8 in there i think

 

My dash setup

 

clean your shift lever

 

its been like that for three years

 

Yea, there's 8 dash light bulbs, those would be the larger type. The rest are the smaller fault light, 4x4, seatbelt etc bulbs.. There's 2 grounds behind the drivers side kickpanel..

 

Just an AfroZone or Advance part?

 

Yea , any place should carry the bulbs - Auto Zone had mine..