Craig McCluskey wrote: > On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:04:13 -0600 "Zoltan Finks" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Has anyone successfully jumped across the dash-light dimmer in order to >> get their dash lights to work (and just stay on full brightness)? I'm >> not feeling inclined to try to remove and replace or fix it at this >> time. > > When I re-did our 240D (now 240D/3.0), I had the instrument cluster out > and cleaned everything up and put aluminum foil around the plastic light > pipes that light up the front of the cluster.
Sometimes new bulbs help, too. It's not uncommon for a film of tungsten from the filament to get deposited on the inside of the glass bulb and greatly reduce the light output. If the bulb looks tinted or mirror-like this is what's happened. It happens to other automotive bulbs, too -- I just replaced a burned out license plate bulb, and the new one is easily twice as bright as the remaining old one, in spite of being the same wattage. One of the big advantages of halogen headlight bulbs is the halogen process encourages stray tungsten atoms to redeposit on the filament, instead of migrating to the glass envelope. This keeps the brightness up *and* makes the filament last longer. David Brodbeck '83 300D Turbo
