Fixed floor shift light - dash lights out now.

On my 1985 245 I had no floor shift light. I pulled the plastic cover
off the shift to see 2 wires - 1 red and 1 red/white. The red/white
was cut. I repaired this and the light came on. So, I reassembled
everything and then tested - no light. Not only no more floor light -
the dash lights went out.

I checked the fuse panel (I never saw fuses like that before) - but
the fuse for the dash/ rear fog lights checked out OK. I'm thinking I
shorted something. Still - no floor lights and no dash lights.

Any ideas?

Second thing, probably unrelated - under the driver's dash panel in
the upper right is a cluster of wires and a red wire is not connected
to anything. Tomorrow I'll upload a photo. Just curious.

Thanks!
Jamie

 

Here is the photo of the red wire. This would be to the top right of
the driver kick panel. The column is the steering column.

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/jamiebabineaux/photo/294928804244013466/0

 

It sounds like you shorted something and burned out the dimmer rheostat,
I did that on my dad's 240 a few years ago.

That sounds like the tach wire, I'm assuming the car doesn't have a tach
installed in the cluster?

 

Here is another link to the photo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamiebabineaux/398321690/

 

Nope, no tach.

I'll pull the dash cover and see if I can fix.

Thanks!

 

Yep, that's the tach lead. It's handy that they prewired all the '81 and
later 240s for that option.

 

You da man! I pulled the cover off the dash panel, saw the wires to
the dimmer, reached underneath and unplugged those wires. I spliced
the wires together and everything came on.

Thanks!