1998 XJ8 Instrument lights very dim
 

Hey guys, I just recently joined the forums and thought I'd go ahead and start working on my small problems. The first thing is the dim instrument lights. I'm uploading 2 pictures. It randomly goes back and forth between the normal light to the dim ones.

Welcome, my guess would be a faulty brightness adjuster switch. There's a little rotary switch on the side of the steering wheel column that you can adjust the brightness. It may need some attention. Either a weak connection, or mucky contacts within the switch.

To get at it, you'll need to remove the lower part of the steering column shroud. The switch is held in with clips and a screw or two. Check the connections first, if good, pop the switch out and see if you can treat it with electrical contact cleaner. Before buttoning it back up, test it. If it's still acting up, change it.

If you are experiencing the fault during high ambient temps, then it is normal and the INSTPK is protecting itself. Here is a sentence from the Tech Tip from May 2002.

There is a protection function within the cluster that dims the backlighting under conditions of extreme temperature.

Here is the May Tech Tip

bob gauff

Dimmer Switch R&I PDF files
 

Hello and welcome to the forum
A lot of the helpful information here on the forum come though the use of file attachments.
New forum members need probably more then 8 postings before they can open a file attachment.

I recommend you kept adding quick posts until you are able to open the file attachments.

Forum guests can open them.

So --- Say you are using Internet Explorer as your default browser and you also have Firefox installed, you may be able to open the PDF files by Run Firefox instead of Internet Explorer and not logging into the forum (then you will show up as a guest).

As a guest you will be able to open and view the files (but will not be able to create or update any posts on the forum). If you need to edit/add a post, you would use your default internet browser and login.

Here are 2 PDF files that show removal and installation of: Steering Column Lower Shroud, the other is Instrument Panel Dimmer Switch.

Attachment 12370

Attachment 12371

Since I usually do not have the hands-on experience I find the instructions and illustrations sometimes gives me the needed visual details on how to proceed.

Jim Lombardi

Thanks for the help everyone! I'll be getting contact cleaner and checking it tomorrow. I'll report back with the outcome