Bulbs or Fuse Out?

I'm thinking of buying a truck here in Florida that has dash lights out. Based on the two photos below and information from the seller (who I am pretty sure is a forum member!) it seems we have a bulb issue. The idiot lights come on and the fan speed control light and radio come on. The speedo and tach lights (and backlight?) and other climate control lights do not come on. I've seen videos on doing all the bulbs. I just don't want to wander into a truck with electrical problems. What am I looking at? Thanks folks!

 

Sure the dimmer is turned to the on position?

 

I see that only the fan speed dial backlight is on, but the temp/selector are out (along with all the dash lights).. which would not likely be a fuse since those are all *probably* (?) on the same fuse (they're all on the same dimmer at least).

Ask the seller how long the lights have been out and if they all went out at once.

It's highly unlikely that all the bulbs would go out at once, but anything is possible I guess.

I would say as long as all those things are functioning (just with no lights) it's probably not much to worry about. Double check all the fuses (under the dash AND under the hood, and if those are fine then you're probably going to need to rip open the dash and check the bulbs.

 

If the fuses are good, what about the ground wire???

 

Thanks man! Exactly what I was hoping to hear. I asked the seller before posting this if he had seen them go out one at a time or all at once. He got back to me today to say they were all out when he bought it. I then was concerned that this might be a bigger problem with a circuit board issue on the back of the instrument cluster so I called the local Toyota dealership and got to speak with a tech. He said they do lots of instrumentation bulbs and it sounded normal to him. I asked about circuit board problems and he said he sees them but it is not related to lights but to actual instrumentation issues like tach or speedometer malfunctioning. So, at this point, unless I hear otherwise, I am going with the bad bulbs theory. Thanks again!

 

Sounds about right, the info from the tech.

 

Buy it!!!

 

Not sure if you bought it but search the web for the wiring harness that goes to the cluster. Find the hot wire for the lights. Turn the headlight switch on. Test with a multimeter or test light. If u get power it's not the fuse. u can also just pull the fuses and see if any are blown. Some circuits are tied into others. so even though you may not see a dedicated gauge cluster fuse slot it doesn't mean it's not tied into another
I.e. Dome

 

3 things need to be checked.
1. does it have a trailer wiring harness- if so how is it wired in?
2. check your park and brake and run lights they are in the same circuit.
3. at the rheostat--dimmer there is 2 green wires with a yellow stripe on it. Take a piece of wire and ground the wire at the dimmer connector and then to any grounded frame part and if you get lights you have lost ground somewhere or the trailer harness is corroded and shorting it out. also it will not blow the fuse so this one can be tricky!

Also as a side note if you dont mind your dash lights at full power\brightness then you can just ground that wire and leave it that way......Or you can try and track it down?

 

Thank you very much! I passed on this truck. However, I am sure this detailed troubleshooting is going to come in handy at some point!

 

This exact thing happened to me the other day after installing my new sound system on my 01... all of the interior lights worked except for dash. Found out that the "tail" fuse blew out which cause both my dash and tailights to go out. Hope this helps.

Tail light fuse is located in the fuse box underneath the hood.