Ok well yesterday I had this very dry almost scraping noise from my headlight switch when adjusting the brightness of the dash lights as they were off then on then off again. Decided to take a look this evening when I had a chance as it's a known issue for overheating and catching fire. I have heard of a few @Lee with his M being one such.
So stripping down the switch assembly is easy enough. You remove the chrome cover and undo a nut that enables you to then turn the remaining chrome housing anti clockwise to remove it. You then can access a small screw in the top of the switch recess above where the chrome housing has come out from.
The whole switch and the heater grill assembly should then be able to be pulled out from the dashboard.
You can then push in the two lugs to push out the headlight switch. I then connected the chrome back part to look and check the reason for the noise. What I found alarmed me and I think I caught what could have been a very nasty issue. It did indeed get very warm when I did the test.
Now the reason for it. The switch has a contact then adjust the brightness of the dash lighting. It normally gets dry and dusty, but in my case it was starting to self destruct and overheat. The white plastic was being turned into dust.
Comparison of the two, left being good and right with the contacts starting to fall apart.
As can be clearly seen, I think I caught this just in time. The fitting was interesting as I had to lower the lower dash panel to push the replacement switch back into place. Glad to say, it's all back together.
So if you have flickering dash lights or a very dry scraping sound, it might be worth just checking the switch before it causes damage to your pride and joy.
So stripping down the switch assembly is easy enough. You remove the chrome cover and undo a nut that enables you to then turn the remaining chrome housing anti clockwise to remove it. You then can access a small screw in the top of the switch recess above where the chrome housing has come out from.
The whole switch and the heater grill assembly should then be able to be pulled out from the dashboard.
You can then push in the two lugs to push out the headlight switch. I then connected the chrome back part to look and check the reason for the noise. What I found alarmed me and I think I caught what could have been a very nasty issue. It did indeed get very warm when I did the test.
Now the reason for it. The switch has a contact then adjust the brightness of the dash lighting. It normally gets dry and dusty, but in my case it was starting to self destruct and overheat. The white plastic was being turned into dust.
Comparison of the two, left being good and right with the contacts starting to fall apart.
As can be clearly seen, I think I caught this just in time. The fitting was interesting as I had to lower the lower dash panel to push the replacement switch back into place. Glad to say, it's all back together.
So if you have flickering dash lights or a very dry scraping sound, it might be worth just checking the switch before it causes damage to your pride and joy.
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