got my H1 the other day. just arrived from Washington state. The dash lights dont work. checked all fuses. they were all good....at least the ones inthe fuse box. so i went to the headlight switch and tried checking it out. found the purple wire that seemes to be going to all the bulbs in all the gauges and found the hot wire(red) going to the head light switch.....so i shorted them with a piece of copper wire, there was a larger arc then i was expecting and the generator gauge dropped below 12 volts, and the truck strained for a min. until i immediatley disconnected it. never had a chance to see if it made the dash lights work. Now my check engine light is on and i am trying to get this thing inspected tomorrow. Hope fully i can just go to the parts house and have them clear the code and it stays away....maybe it was a low voltage or voltage surge code that was thrown. Any ideas on the dash lights and the reason the truck strained under just jump a 12V light switch??? its a 1997.5 wagon turbo by the way.

 

never mind about the check engine light. drove it about 20 miles today and it went off.....had a hunch it would do that. but still puzzled about the dash lights. Maybe the switch itself is bad. but im scared to jump between the wires because obviously its too much voltage pushing through. How many volts should the generator gauge be reading? im use to the military and everything should be at 27 volts.

 

Have you checked the dimmer switch to make sure the brightness of the dash lights is adjusted up? If you will cycle the truck through the on/off sequence several times or disconnect the batteries and re-connect it fill reset many issues like that. If it doesn't it is time to start diagnosing.

 

Check the manual and find the fuse box or boxes. find the dash light fuse, If you have a pull-out type head light switch, pull it out and twist it all the way right and left to dim and un-dim, then try to wiggle it up and down while doing this again.