Tail light dimmer?

TonyD.

Registered User
The other night i was driving around with some friends when one of them came up next to me and told me all my tail lights were out. This was odd, since i checked every bulb the night before. When we stopped, i was playin with some of the knobs. I found out that for my guage cluster dim, instead of dimming the cluster, it dims the tail lights and turns them off, but not the headlights. Three questions. Is this a factory option? Do i have to search for a possible problem? Or could it be that someone did this on purpose for illegal use?
 
1) No.

2) Yes.

3) Possibly.

I'd bet first the headlight switch is going bad, and somehow the tail light circuit is wired with the dash lights.

RwP
 
Could be the wrong headllight switch. 1989 models, for example, used two different part numbers, depending on date of manufacture. Use the wrong one and you get the symptoms you described. Had the same thing happen when I replaced the switch in my now long gone '89. When tail lights were dim the reostat intended for dimming the instrument cluster got very hot. Put in the correct switch, problem solved.
 
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DRL's have nothing to do with the tail lights. The module powers only the high beams at a reduced voltage. Pulling up the parking brake turns off the DRL's. So you can do surveilence on bad guys with the engine running:cool:
Alan
 
yea this one doesnt have drls. ill have to look into the switch and see if theres a problem. although it is pretty cool being able to turn off my tail lights only
 
My car is the same way and i actually got pulled over on I88 for it. Your dash/interior light dimmer switch is either the wrong one or hooked up wrong and thus your taillights is a part of that dimmer now. I found this out when my car was at Dave Dalke's shop. The part i believe isn't made anymore so have to goto a junkyard if i remember correctly.
 
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