How do you change 1988 Chevy Celebrity dashboard light bulbs?

Answer 1

To change the dash light bulbs in the instrument panel you have to take it out of the dash. To do that proceed as follows:

First remove the hood that surrounds the instrument cluster by removing the three screws across the bottom of the hood, and one at each end of the hood, then pull gently to get the push clips out at the top. Set the hood aside.

Then remove the trim piece below the hood, the one that covers the radio, ac/heater control etc. as follows:

1. Pull the ash tray out and set it aside. Next remove its slide by taking out the four screws that retain it and pull it out.

2. If your hand fits through that opening reach up and unplug the power wire and turn the round nut off of the cigarette lighter socket and put the nut aside. The socket doesn't need to be removed from the trim panel. If you cannot reach through that opening remove the kick panel that covers the bottom of the dash and reach up through to remove the nut.

3. If your car has column shift remove the trim panel beneath the steering column and put it aside. There is a little clip that holds a string to the shift barrel, that operates the shift indicator. Pull the clip off of the barrel and let it dangle.

4. At the back of the headlight knob is a small release button. Push it to take the knob off of the shaft that comes out of the headlight switch. There will be a nut that holds the trim piece to the light switch bracket. The nut has holes for a spanner wrench, I use a small screw driver to gently tap on the hole in that nut to loosen the nut and spin it off.

5. At this point pull gently on the trim panel. It is held in place by plastic lugs on either end, they simply pull out. If your car has the rear window defroster pull the panel out enough to unplug the wire harness to the rear window defroster switch and then work the trim panel out of the dash.

Now you should be ready to remove the instrument cluster. It is held in by a number of screws with hex heads, 7 mm as I recall. Only remove the screws that hold the cluster in place, leave the screws that hold the lens in place. When you have all of the mounting screws out you should be able to pull gently on the cluster and remove it from the dash. There will be two plugs for the wire harnesses, they just pull out of their sockets. If the cluster will not pull out you probably missed a mounting screw.

Now with the cluster out turn it over. The bulbs are in individual sockets that plug into the circuit board. I would recommend replacing all of the bulbs, it was too much hassle to get this far and have to do it all again if another bulb burns out.

Reverse these steps to put the cluster back in.