Dashboard woe's
 

First a question before a short story. Is the hour meter supposed to have a back light in it?

While looking for the source of my dash squeak, I decided to to fix the back lights in my 2 gauges that don't light up. The hour meter and the trim gauge. I couldn't find any external bulb on the hour meter like on the rest of the gauges. Is it supposed to light up?

On the trim gauge, I couldn't quite reach it from through the headrest, so I almost gave up on it. But by going from underneath the dash rather than through the head rest, setting my jaw just right and dislocating both thumbs I was able to free the bulb from the back of the gauge. Looked at it in the light and frowned. The filament appeared to be fully intact!

I quickly changed it with the tack back light and verified that indeed the bulb was good. Bummer, That was a lot of writhing around on the floor of the boat to get that bulb out for no reason. Got a flashlight & small mirror and determined that the wire for the light was not attached to the gauge. So back to the floor for some more torture. Got the bulb back in and with more writhing, a cramp in the jaw and even some grunting, I got the wire back on the gauge. Turn on the lights and... Woohoooo... aaarugh, the light that I put in the trim gauge was actually the one originally from the tack... and it's noticeably brighter than the other small gauges :shakehead: What to do, what to do... Back to the floor to make it right. Finally got bulbs in the right holes and wires back in the right places and everything lights up evenly. :wink_thumbup:

So, back to the original question, how does your hour meter look at night?

Mine is not illuminated. It's the only gauge on the dash that isn't.

They sure don't make the gauges and the dash easy to work on, do they? I usually end up having to contort my body around and make my way inside the storage compartment. Which I can say I've literally been stuck in three times. It's not fun.

To answer your question... No, my hour meter doesn't illuminate either. :)