My instrument panel illumination all of a sudden went out and it turned out to be the dimmer control rheostat has gone. Pulled the rheostat and found the ceramic base that the sliding contact sweeps across on had cracked into several pieces, probably from the heat it generates and cycling over time, and some of the piece broke off to nowhere to find. Called the dealler and they wanted CAD$120 plus tax for it . So I decided to go cheap. Instead of simply shorting it out and making the illumination too bright (to me) I spliced in a 12V 35W halogen bulb, that is commonly used on desk lamps and work lamps, in place of the rheostat, after trying with 20W and 50W bulbs for different brightness of illumination. The bulb would glow a little bit and produce some heat during operation but hardly anything to worry about. The rheostat, now a dummy, is put back in only to fill the holes on the panel piece.

Just thought this may help. If you are to try, leave the wire in black alone and splice into the other two wires.

If you'd like to use a resistor instead of a bulb, use a 10W/2.2 ohm or 10W/2.7 ohm for a good result.

What did you do with the bulb? Doesn't it make light all of the time the headlights are on?

Thanks for posting. This is good info.

Originally posted by Bugzuki:

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What did you do with the bulb? Doesn't it make light all of the time the headlights are on?

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The bulb functions in place of the broken rheostat as a current limiting device with its filament resistance, except that it's non-adjustable. When the lights are turned on at night the bulb has only a fraction of battery voltage across its filament, so it only glows instead of shines at full power. Since the bulb is installed behind the panel piece, hardly any bit of light from the glow can be seen.