Rheostat for dashboard light

[TEJOLX47]

Hi guys,

The rheostat of my dashboard light is gone.
Does anyone has one in working condition for a good price.
My car is a 280 SL from 1970.
Thank you
Francisco

[Steve.k]

An easy solution is to bypass the rheostat.  There are several threads on the subject here.   
It’s an easy fix, and the dash lights will be on full brightness (which isn’t very bright to begin with).

[mbzse]

.../...Rheostat of my dashboard .../...

It is readily available new from Mercedes

[WRe]

Hi,
My rheostat is without function too. But in my opinion it's not necessary because it brings no light even in total on position. The bulb power is too low.
I had also bad experiences with fixed rheostats, my old /8 nearly burned down because it heated up.
I by-passed mine too, see att. picture, just bridge pin 1 and 2 of plug for instrument cluster.
The price for a new rheostat at MB actually is 160€, much too high for more or less nothing.
...WRe

[Benz Dr.]

This is, without question, your best option.

[TEJOLX47]

Dear Pagoda lovers,

Thank you all for the advise.
MB charges 170€ in Portugal which is, in fact, to much for a useless gadget.
I will follow your recommendation.
Many thanks to all those who contributed.
Regards
Francisco

[Victor113]

I’m n my set up the numbers are 9-11 for the pins? Is this accurate? Are these the two pens that I need to jump to bypass rheostat please confirm thank you in advance for your help.

[BobH]

Hello, i believe you have the wrong 12 way connector open, this one feeds the column switch

The other connector next to it feeds the instruments, and it is pins 9 and 11, look for the grey/violet and grey/blue wires

There are pictures and details in the technical manual

[Victor113]

Yes, I realized that as soon as I posted it and found the other 12 pin box, I was able to use a jumper wire and managed to jump the correct wires, but I cross wired the male pins from the box side into the box as I didn’t have a method of soldering them, it still worked and it’s very secure and hope  I did it the right way🙏🙏🙏🙏

[Victor113]

As a temporary fix, I simply wrapped some thin wire around both relevant pins (from the outside of the connector), connector was able to fully close as this will serve as a temporary fix until I have more time to do the full soldered fix? I believe I’ve seen others do the same. Let me know if there are any potential issues.