I can't speak of the pre-2K Bonneville control specifics. I was able to tell from your picture the way GM has engineered the dimmer circuit. Generally speaking, the dimmer your lights are set, the warmer your control will get. More of the power is dissipated across the coil in the control and less by the lights in the circuit.

Someone else I'm sure can answer your question about the difference in model years. It'* also possible that in '96 - '99 they used and electronic dimmer. Again, I have no first hand knowledge and am only throwing out possibilities here.

ddalder, you must never leave this forum.

I see the rheostat design, but I'm not as familiar with it as you are. What is interesting is that I thought it was backwards. I have no empirical reasoning for this except that my dash was always on full brightness.

From what I believe, the design was most likely not changed from the rheostat for the 96-99 years. Mostly, it'* that the dash changed very little, so there wouldn't be too much room for a change.

I went to a junkyard and tore out a new switch. Here is a video with ill fitting music in the background to show how to take out the switch. It is an awful source of information, but at least you can watch it and see how I took it out. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfMXovPw6SA

Posting a reply to bump and inform.

I replaced the switch, swapped out the starter, changed out all the battery to ____ wires, and the car starts far more quickly. It starts kind of like a new car.

Now, the bad news:
The dash lights still only work when I pull out the little dial. With "twilight sentinel," only the headlights turn on. However, they turn on fully. Only the outermost tail lights turn on at 6V when I manually turn on the lights so I can see the dashboard. Also, the dash is now even dimmer! So, what do I do? I've driven the car out of the heated garage and to my house. I can take it apart all I want now. All in all, I think it'* a grounding problem and a couple other things.

Watching this thread like a hawk!

I have no background lighting, but the compass, the DIC, climate control main display, and the radio main display all stay on full brightness.
Everything was working until I installed a Alpine CD player (used adapter harness for plug-n-play, except I had to splice the amp power wire to the main radio power wire).
Reinstalled the stock radio and no background lighting, the lights that do stay on won't dim and when I have a radio plugged in the battery will drain overnight. Only radio I've had the battery drain problem with is the stock 7-band.
BTW, this problem is also a problem my old 99 SSEi and old 98 SSE also have.

Do you mean you've put back in the old radio to cause this? I am on my second aftermarket radio, but you bring up a good idea. I am going to look into this radio thing.

rad, did you ever check the ground bus connectors????
OLBlueEyesBonne: The amp should not be spliced into your radio power, you may have spliced the remote wire into the yellow battery wire and this will have your amp on 24/7. I have my amp in the trunk. I ran 10awg wire to my trunk from the battery for a positive lead. the negative cable is bolted onto the ground strap from the power antenna and the remote (thin blue) wire is spliced into the power antenna hot lead so when my radio comes on so will the amp. When my radio is off so is my amp, 7 years of trouble free thump in my trunk and no battery drain

I never had the battery drain problem until I put everything back to stock, but I my car is a 1999 with the BOSE amp, so the wiring is probably almost identical for the factory amp in your 94 SSEi.


My amp is the factory BOSE amp, and the easiest way to get power was to tap into the yellow wire. :? I put the stock radio back in, and in doing so I untapped the amp power wire and spliced it back to it'* original plug which plugs into the CD changer connection on the back of the radio. I never had the battery drain when I had it tapped into the main yellow power wire -it only started draining AFTER I returned the stereo system back to stock.
According to the guy who bought my old 99 SSEi and 98 SSE (his sister bought) the shop they had taken those cars to traced it to the power relay on the power antenna, but when they switched in a know good unit, the problem persisted. :(

Old Blue Eyes,
I cut into 1337ssei'* stock Bose amp wiring, and it is totally different from mine. The wires are different colors, and there are a lot more wires in the later models than on the early models.

The stock amp is now missing from my car. I've taken it out, and it'* doing pretty much nothing. The head unit goes via composite, or RCA, to amps that have the shortest route possible to the speakers via speaker wires. So, all I'm running to my head unit is 12V battery and accessory power wires, a ground or two, and a remote power on. I'll soon take away the remote power on.

I think Old BE and I have pretty much the same problem because taking out the switch made the problem not better but worse because now the dash is dimmer. I'm going to take my $20 RiceZone manual and follow every wire from the fuse panel. Back when I was screamingly frustrated at one of my headlights randomly dimming to 50%, I swore I'd replace every single piece of circuitry in the car. Given that it'* 14 years old, I think it'* time for some new wiring. I'm taking out the one remaining seat, the carpeting, and the remaining rear door panels on Monday.

I have a simular problem with my 93 Bonneville SSE. Except that when my wife came home last night she shut the car off and the heater was still running. I checked the fuse panel and found a 15A fuse totally melted in the fuse panel. Plus when i pull the head light switch on and off that also causes the heater to come on and off. (While the heater control is in the off postistion.) Would this be the result of the head light switch being bad? Any Information on how to fix this problem would be great. This is my only means of transportation. Thanks
Buddha5150