Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Problems with Instrument Panel

I was driving, and turned on my lights tonight, and I noticed only part of my instrument panel lit up. I am a computer guy, not a car guy so I don't know where to begin looking. The only part that isn't lit up is the gas gauge. The tach is moslty lit up except for the bottom right corner which is where the gas gauge is. I have no problem with dimming my lights or anything else. I just can't read my gas gauge while sitting back and driving. I have to shine a little light on it to read it. Any ideas?

95' Contour GL 2.5 liter


P.S.
I love this site, and the help it gave me with replacing my cheap plastic water pump. THANKS!!

One of your light bulbs burned out. You need to take out the instrument cluster in order to put in a new one.

HTH,
BP

hmmmmmmmmmm i am not sure but it sounds like maybe a bulb in the panel went out. i havent heard of this before others will be along to help.

someone has HAXOR your car, got into the root of the car and pinged the crap out of your box until your lights in your instrument panel blew cuz it coulnt take the load.

When you go into the dash to replace the burned out bulb, replace all of them so you won't be doing again real soon.

Is there a guide to do this? I have no idea where to start taking it apart much less know which bulbs to buy to replace then.

I'm not sure if there is any how-to, but I'll try.

You need to pop out the clock and the defroster. You can get a flatblade under the front of each. Once they are out, your need to remove the remaining little trim pieces. Don;t forget the little rounded end piece. There should be two screws hidden behind these pieces.

On the opposite of the steering wheel, there are two more trim pieces that you need to pop off. There should be one screw behind these pieces.

The last two screws are a pain. You will really need a very long phillips screwdriver. Look under the dash lip that shrouds your instrument console. There should be a hole on each side. The screws are set into these holes. They are not straight up, but at an angle. Carefully unscrew them. They are pretty easy to strip if you try to use a shorty screwdriver.

There should be 5 screws total.

The entire black dash piece should pull out.

Once the dash is out of the way the rest is pretty obvious. There are 4 screws that hold the cluster in. Once they are out you can pull the cluster out a few inches. Put a towel down over your steering coulmn and lay the cluster down on it. There are two connectors that you need to remove. The have a tab in the middle that you squeeze to release them.

I'm not sure about the 95's. You may have to unscrew your speedo cable.

I hope that this all makes sense.

Later,
BP

Also the Haynes manual covers this pretty well.