2003 F350 SC 4x4 5.4L. I was driving last night, "dusk" had my headlights on and realized my dash lights were out. I replaced the headlight switch last year and all has been good. I got home and found the cluster fuses #35 and I think #42? were probably bad, I didn't put a tester on them, I just swapped out the 2 fuses, both 10amps. Great I had dash lights and I had tail lights again. Jumped in restarted to move truck over and no dash lights but had tail lights. I got out leaving the truck running and I had dash lights again. I pulled the headlight switch, all looked good, no melting in the plugs, and no heat. I pushed on the instrument panel with my finger tips and the dash lights started flickering, backed off and they were fine. So I'm guessing there's a loose wire? or connector? anyone have an idea or is the cluster going bad? I also lost the function of the fog lights, but that may be a fuse, I haven't looked yet. Thanks for any help here.

 

No theories? I'm going to pull the cluster after work today, I'll report back on what I find.

 

I pulled it all apart and didn't find anything wrong. I re-seated the connectors on the back of the cluster, I looked over the headlight switch real good, I didn't see and burning or melting, although the housing for the smaller connector did look to be a little misshaped, so I figured maybe a loose connection there. I re-seated it nice and tight and wrapped it with electrical tape. Put it all back together except I left the Sony after market radio out of it, it's a piece of junk anyway. Everything works, all lights, even the fog lights decided they wanted to work too.

 

Just a side note....


When driving at night on long dark roads, dim your instrument panel lights down somewhat and you'll notice the road ahead is much easier to see just after a few moments.


A bright instrument cluster light will cause your pupils to restrict and you can't see ahead for animals, debris, etc as well.