Instrument lighting relay

[Inky]

Hello everyone - new here, so sorry in advance for any rookie mistakes!

I did take a quick look around the forum but couldn't find what I needed; if someone has already covered this a nudge in the right direction would be good :)

I have an lighting fault - driving along at night and the instrument lighting will go off, and the cluster brightness will jump to day time levels (digital dash). It seems like a relay fault to me - but it can't be a fault in the main high load relay because the headlights don't fail, just the instrument lighting. I'm not sure whether there is a secondary relay, and if so where to find it - or whether all the functions are on the one main headlight relay unit which I couldn't locate anyway (wasn't where the wiring diagram said - must be differen on the Aussie models. That or I'm blind).

Any advise would be appreciated, particularly just in regards to where the relays are hidden!

[CTScott]

My bet is that the issue is at the headlight switch connector. There are two separate circuits for the headlights that get switch by the stalk - One feeds the headlight relay (and that is obviously fine). The other feeds the cluster to tell it to switch between dimmed and not. That second circuit sounds to be the issue.

I had an issue myself with the other circuit, and it turned out to be that one of the connector pins had become sloppy from the connector being removed so many times. I could recreate the problem by wiggling the connector harness and was able to isolate it to one wire. I popped the pin out of the connector and reshaped it to make better contact and haven't had an issue since.

[Inky]

Thanks for the advice - sounds pretty much on the money. I'll give that a shot. Can you tell me where this connector is located?

[CTScott]

Thanks for the advice - sounds pretty much on the money. I'll give that a shot. Can you tell me where this connector is located?

At the base of the headlight switch. You have to remove the lower steering column cover to get to it, which involves removing the two screws under the steering wheel (which you can get to by rotating the steering wheel a little bit to either side), and a third bu the tilt lever.

[Inky]

Had a look in there, connections and wiring seem fine. After cleaning and having a poke around the contactor box it looks like the problem is inside the hub of the light stalk itself. The contact for the circuit isn't dirty, but if I put a bit of extra pressure on that particular contact when it's not working, it starts working again. At least I know where ther problem is now.

Thanks for the help finding the fault mate :)