Dash board lights

For the dash lights, the common failure is the contact on the rheostat, (red arrow in the photo). Sometimes the springiness is lost so it doesn't make good contact. Sometimes the contact arcs and welds itself to the coiled resistor wire, then, when you rotate it, the contact gets bent over backward. You're lucky then if it makes contact at all. I've also had some where the coiled resistor wire breaks free of the ceramic material it's glued in with, then gets bunched up with high and low spots. I tried to glue that wire back in once with epoxy, and while it did work, that wire gets hot, and my car smelled like epoxy every time I turned the lights on. The better approach is to just replace the switch.

For a hint, push the switch knob in (off), then press the button, (blue arrow). That will allow the knob and shaft to be pulled out.

Which switch am I replacing? The head light switch on the inside of the car?

Removing the switch is done from inside of the car? Or do I have to remove any part of the dash?

Thanks.

Yup, that's the head light switch. I've never seen where you could buy just the rheostat, although I did switch the one on my Challenger many years ago. The donor switch was different, but the rheostat was the same, and was removable.

As for how to remove it, you'll be the expert once you look at it. The first step is to reach under the dash and feel around for that button, (blue arrow). Press that, then pull the knob and shaft out. Behind where the knob was, will be a thin nut to unscrew. As I recall, some of those had two tiny holes to stick in the points of a snap-ring pliers or a needle-nose pliers to turn the nut. With the nut removed, the switch is pulled out the back.

Oops. Now that I shared that wondrous information, I found the correct procedure. Apparently the knob and shaft come out differently than I've seen before, and there is a trim panel to remove. Follow the procedure I pieced together below, and let me know how you do.

Yes, this totally make sense. Thanks.

So far, I am stuck at removing the light knob. putting in a pick and pulling on the knob doesn't seem to work. It's not budging at all. It's feels like the stem is in the way of me pressing on anything to unlock the knob.

I'm sorry to say I've never seen this type of knob removal before. Would a stretched-out paper clip work?