I have an '82 Dodge van. The lights for the fuel gauge & battery gauge are out. Previously, the speedometer light was out..now it's OK.

Is there a separate light bulb for those gauges? I remember taking off the dash & trying to fix the problem. I would hit my hand on the dash, & sometimes the light (for speedometer) would turn on.

 

each gague has a 194 light on the back in a twistlock adapter. The back of the cluster is just copper traces. You may either have blown bulbs or just poor contact which would be fixable by banging. if you take the instrument cluster out. you can clan up the contact points easilly. you take off the dash pad then the 7 screws holding the cluster in, reach behind to unhook the speedo cable and the the 2 wireing harness plugs for the pannel. I'd recomend disconnecting the negitive so you can pry those off with a screwdriver. They will be on tight wiggle them. I cleaned the light sockets with steel wool to burnish off the oxidation around the holes. if you just want to change the bulbs and have skinny hands and can work by feel, you can just reach under the dash and change the lights that way, but its next to impossible to clean up the contact points that way.

 

thanks..sure enough the bulb was burned out. Bought a replacement #194 & it works.

 

For anyone elses future reference all of the lights in the dash are 194 bulbs. That includes the higheam bulb, the directionals and all of the backlights. Also if your vehicle is so equiped the headlight switch lamp, and the 4 error lights to the right of the instrument cluster. 194's are also used in the rear side marker lights.