No dash lights in 4 of my cars!

[kreauto]

Take your meter on ohms and probe each end of the coils on the dimmer. It is the same as a fuel sending unit. It must read a completed circuit. It can’t be a open circuit. If it is open it will not work, there is a break in the windings some where. If you continue to probe it back towards the other probe you will find where the break is. It really is exactly the same as old electric trailer brake controllers worked. You adjusted the knob and it moved the control up or down a coil of wire to send 12 volt back to trailer brakes. The closer it moved to the base or incoming power the more voltage it sent to trailer brakes. The dimmer works exactly the same way.

 

[Kern Dog]

A fellow FBBO member and I chatted about this. He had a similar problem with his 69 Coronet. He bypassed the dinner and put an inline fuse in it.
I’ll probably do the same.

 

[1KoolBee]

On my Bee, as the dimmer switch got more worn and tarnished, it would temporarily short and blow the dash lamp fuse. This would also kill the taillights . The temp fix was to replace the fuse and don’t touch the dimmer until I could pull the dimmer and clean or replace. Not saying it’s your problem, but a possibility. Mine will likely hard fail soon. I’ll try to rebuild it. I’ll post pix if I’m successful.