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burned dash light dimmer control CJ

Hi All, Vehicle 83 CJ-7 Painless harness wiring and switch 3 mos. old.

While driving to the store today, my headlight switch started to smoke.Panic anyone? I figured out it was the dimmer control for my gauges. It has a 5 amp fuse for it which did not blow and I am only drawing 2.9 amps when the lights are turned to their brightest. It was a brand new switch; I only have 1000 miles on the CJ since completing resto. It seems to have charred where the rheostat touches the contact at the max position. My gauges are all autometer (6) and heater control/washer lights and the ARB lights and all of my indicator lights are LED (4wd, direction, check enfine, etc) so that current draw is minimal. Everything worked great up until now. 2.9 amps gives about 36 watts or so through the switch. Is this acceptable? Could it have just been a bad switch/rheostat? Thanks

Reply to
csperlein
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Could be a bad switch or could be you are running non stock halogen headlights

The whole switch will over heat and melt down if you are using halogen lights. Depending on how much over stock they are they can fry very fast.

An 83 CJ was designed for regular lights. The switches die pretty fast if high powered lights are put in without relays.

One friend with an 82 just killed his dash dimmer part and the switch smoked out and he only added one halogen headlight as a replacement with the other a regular light.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

csperle>

Reply to
Mike Romain

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