Hi Folks!
I have a 2005 Grand Caravan and several of the dash lights behind the center dash area appear to be burnt out. These are primarily in the heater/fan area. Does anyone out there have a Wiki or something on how to remove this center dash to access the bulbs?
THANKS!
Sam

 

1. Remove the two screws on the inside top of the dash bezel.
2. Remove the lower portion of the dash bezel by gently prying it up. This is the black piece over the steering column.
3. Underneath the lower portion of the dash bezel, there are two more screws that hold the main piece of the dash bezel. Remove these.
4. You can now remove the dash bezel. It is helpful to shift the gear selector lever out of park to give you more wiggle room.
5. Remove the four screws the hold the gauge cluster in place.
6. Tilt the gauge cluster forward. Remove the wire clamp so that you can remove the cluster. This took some wiggling back and forth.
7. On the back of the cluster, you can remove the bulbs by gently twisting them with pliers.
8. Replace the bulbs with new. The bulbs are PC74
9. Reassemble doing the reverse of above.

 

Thanks Holtzer1. Actually, I suppose I just needed the center section of the entire dashboard removed. I found another posting where someone mentioned about pulling the trim from above the cup holders, removing a couple screws, and then popping the bezel from around the center of the dash. This seemed to work and I was able to get to the area where the bulbs were dying... right around the controls for the airflow (fan, rear control, and floor/dash/defrost selector). Much to my disappointment, I see that all 5 or so bulbs are small indicator lamps that are soldered to the control board. I yanked (well, I used a soldering iron..) one of the little bulbs off of there and sure enough it read open on a DVM. What a pain.... Here are a couple questions:
- Have these bulbs burnt out on any else's airflow controls?
- Any idea WHY all of them would be sequentially burning out?
- I am thinking it will probably be cheaper to install more indicator lamps than buy a new controller board. Any idea as to the specs or availability of these lamps?

On an apparently unrelated note, our DVD player (located right below this airflow controller) will no longer read DVDs. It will play CDs ok, just pukes out "ERROR" when attempting to play a movie. I may post this in another post, but thought I would add it here just in case if someone out there sees a correlation between these issues.

Thanks again!
Sam

 

sorry bout that, i thought you meant the cluser...i over read your post. the control units can be rather expensive, especialy if you have dual climate control. sometimes you can pick em up at a salvage yard relatively cheap, but from the dealer...get ready to pay. so if you have the skills to replace just the bulbs..by all means do it.

as for the dvd player, i am assuming you are trying to play store bought dvd's and not ripped and burnt ones. chryslers radio and video electronics have never been noted to be great units unfortunately. you most likely have an internal problem to where it cant read the correct format from the dvd and doesnt know what to do with it, so it throws an error. youll probably have to get a replacement unit for it.

 

in the contol units is 4 little bulbs

but what are the info about this bulbs ?? # or spec of this little bulbs with a plastic twist in base please !

 

If your looking for the bulbs for the heater controls, they used to be available from the dealer but were discontinued many years ago. I have never been able to find anyone else that offers the bulb.

 

Answer may be in this somewhere: http://forum.chryslerminivan.net/sho...imate-controls

 

helped me