I recently inherited a 88 toyota pickup. The instrument dimmer switch wires dont have power to them. The wires had power a few days ago. Any suggestions on what could be the problem.

 

Welcome to YotaTech!

Are you having a problem with the instrument panel illumination (dimmer knob)?

How did you know you had power on those wires? Did you measure them with a multimeter? Was the dimmer plugged in at the time of measurement?

Have you checked if you have power at the 15A "TAIL" fuse?

The dimmer (rheostat) is on the ground side of the circuit.

With the dimmer unplugged, one wire should show strong continuity to ground while the other wire should show close to battery voltage (12 volts) when the black lead of the multimeter connected to a good ground and the red lead of the multimeter is touching each wire separately.

 

Ok i tested both wires together not individually. Red wire with black stripe and white wire with black stripe. Is the red wire the ground instead of the white possibly. The tail lights work.

 

Also i took two bulbs out of cluster they were no good and left them out. Would this cause a grounding issue?